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To fix the comfort issues occurring on the top floor of this home, our team reinsulated the attic with both cellulose and spray foam.
Sometimes the insulation around the vertical portions of a skylight will fall off or is never installed, to begin with. This allows outside air to radiate through the drywall and into the living spaces below. This can make a home feel uncomfortable in certain areas. Closed-cell spray foam is installed on all surfaces of the skylight chase with an average thickness of 2 inches. This keeps the outside air away from the drywall and lessens airflow into the living spaces below.
A cantilevered floor sticks out past the wall below it. This building detail allows air to leak in, creating cold or hot floors above and cold or hot ceilings below. Fiberglass insulation is inadequate and can not stop airflow. The Comfenergy Crew removes the old fiberglass insulation and a SilverGlo foam block is installed to block the bay. Polyurethane foam is sprayed over the block and on the bottom of the floor deck to stop all airflow and insulate. This solution results in increased comfort, fewer drafts, and lower energy bills.
Insulation alone will not solve most attic performance problems. This Sterling VA attic was allowing conditioned air from the rooms below to escape and make the home uncomfortable. As a result the HVAC system had to run more often than it should which lead to high energy bills. After removing the old insulation, the small cracks, gaps and seams in the ceiling floor were exposed and able to be sealed with Zyp Foam. Once air sealed, the rest of the attic was filled with blown in Tru Soft cellulose insulation.
This Sterling VA attic received several steps and services to improve the comfort and energy efficiency of the home, one of which was having the HVAC ducts running through the attic encapsulated with spray foam. The metal ducts had been susceptible to temperature issues when the attic would heat up or cool down depending on the time of year and weather outside. When the attic was hot and cold air was passing through the ducts, the conditioned and cooled air would not reach the rooms it was intended to before safely. When it was cold and there was heated air passing through, the cold ducts would work to reduce the heat of that air. Encapsulating the HVAC ducts with spray foam keeps the air inside safe and helps to reduce the energy cost to create more heated or cooled air.