*Episode 32 – What’s in your attic?


Phone Interview on Jan. 5, 2009, between Jeremy Stacy, associate podcast producer for Angie’s List “List-en Up!” and Tim Carter, syndicated columnist and owner of the website askthebuilder.com.

Jeremy Stacy: Please give me your name, location and what you do for the record.

Tim Carter: My name is Tim Carter. My company name is askthebuilder.com. I'm based in Meredith, N.H. I write a syndicated newspaper column that runs in about 100 newspapers. Primarily what I do is I publish all that work on my website on askthebuilder.com.

More importantly, I was a hands-on builder for 20-plus years before I wrote my first column and I was picked as one of the top 50 remodelers in the United States in 1993.

JS: What kind of insulation options do consumers have to insulate their attic?

TC: Homeowners have all kinds of options to insulate their attic. They can go with any number of different products such as fiberglass, cellulose, rock wool, vermiculite; there many different types — they could even put straw up there if they wanted to — but what you want to do is use a material that's highly effective and one that's also safe. I say straw because if you've ever slept in a barn before, you know it's a very good insulator, but it's also very unsafe. You drop a match in and your house goes up in flames. People tend to look for insulation products that are not flammable, and fiberglass does not burn. That's why I think when you go to a home center or you see what builders use, they'll use fiberglass typically. You can also use foam. The different spray foams are highly effective insulators as well. And there's a big movement on using spray foam insulation in houses.

JS: What would you say are the top performers for insulation?

TC: Well, I think you have to quantify that question. Does top performance mean which [insulation] gives you the biggest bang for the buck or which insulation has the highest R-value per thickness — per inch — because they're two totally different questions. If you do an analysis, the best bang for your buck might be fiberglass. But, if you have a limited space that you're working in that you need to insulate well, I think your going to find closed-cell foam probably is the best in a given situation. It really depends on your application as to what the best insulation is for you.

JS: Tell me the difference between batt insulation and blown insulation.

TC: Batt insulation is a product that is manufactured in a plant and it comes out in these sheets that are a specific thickness and a specific width. For example, you may buy rolls of insulation for walls that are 15 inches wide and 3 1/2 inches thick or 5 1/2 inches thick or 9 1/2 inches or 12. The reason it's 15 inches wide is because the typical wall studs — when you space typical wall studs 16 inches on center — the actual void space is 14 and a half inches. So by making the insulation 15 inches, it fills up any of the air gaps because it's like a friction fit. That's a batt. The best way to describe what a batt of insulation would be that it looks like a flaky biscuit. That's what a batt looks like because it has layers of fiberglass that are kind of interwoven.

[For] blown fiberglass, they just take regular fiberglass and chunk it up and it goes through a machine that basically pulverizes it into small particles that are as big as a marble — or maybe like a malted milk ball — and it spits out the end of this hose and you just fill an area, much like you would fill the back of a dump truck with dirt or soil. Up in an attic space you can see how that would work really well because with blown-in insulation, instead of spending all that time trying to fit and cut the fiberglass batts around a joists and tresses, you can have somebody up there with a big hose that's just spraying the blown-in insulation. And the blown-in insulation tends to fill in void spaces better in ceilings than with the batt insulation.

JS: What are R-factors and what do they mean?

TC: An R-factor is a unit of measurement and R stands for resistance. It means resistance to heat flow because that's what heat tries to do. You'll notice this if you've ever left a metal spoon in a pot of soup as it was heating up. When you come back five minutes later and grab the end, you burn your hand even though the spoon is not in the fire.

When we heat our homes or when we're trying to cool the homes, we're trying to slow down the heat. Like in the winter, we want to slow the heat from leaving the inside of the house. If you have an insulation that has a high R-value — a number like 20, 30, 40, 50, even 60 — that's good. The higher the number means it's doing a better job of slowing down the movement of the heat from one place to another.

JS: What questions should consumers ask to choose the right contractor to insulate their attic?

TC: We could talk for days about that. The questions they need to ask these contractors are No. 1 : [Get] all the documentation, meaning I would never let anybody in my house to do work if they could not produce a workman's compensation certificate that's accurate and of course a certificate of insurance showing that they are completely insured. No. 2: We want to make sure they are in good standing with the local Better Business Bureau. But then — this is where most consumers fall down — you as the consumer need to go out and get educated about the product or the service before you even make your first phone call. The mistake most people make when they hire a contractor is they place all their decision on hope. Meaning, they hope they're hiring the right guy. If they don't know the right questions to ask the contractors coming in, they're not going to make an informed decision. If you're going to hire a good insulating contractor for your home, you better go and research about insulation yourself, find out what the problems are and the pros and cons. Then when you start to call the contractors and they come to your home, start asking them questions. You already know the answers and you want to see the contractor who gives you the most correct answers. That's who you should probably hire.

JS: How can a homeowner tell if they need additional insulation in their attic?

TC: You can go to the US Department of Energy website. They have some pretty halfway decent guidelines. There are different climate zones here in the United States of America. Obviously the people with respect to heating — the people who live in northern Maine, northern Minnesota — they need more insulation than the people in Florida or Phoenix because it's just not as cold.

When you look at the maps, they give you these recommended R-values you should have in your ceilings and your walls and floors. For example, there are many people who have their homes built on crawl spaces. Well, believe it or not, you need to insulate the floor because it's cold in the crawl space. 

Go to the Department of Energy [website]. Go look at those maps. You can cross-index those maps with information at the different manufacturers' websites. Go look at the people who make fiberglass, the people that make cellulose, the people that make foam and see if there's consistency in what they say you should have as well. That's how I would start that task. Then you just have to go out and measure it.

They'll give you converters — I'm just throwing this number out — 12 inches of batt fiberglass may have an R-factor of 38. Let's just say that you're in an area where the charts you should have an R-38 in your attic. Well, you better have 12 inches of fiberglass up there. If you don't, you've got problems. It means you need to add more [insulation].

JS: Can insulation go bad?

TC:  The answer is yes. Here are ones that typically don't go bad: foam insulation like a closed-cell foam insulation [because of] the way it's made — it can get wet and usually its R-value is not affected. But, many of the common insulations like fiberglass, cellulose, rock wool, vermiculite, things like that — they get their insulating properties by having all this air in the actual product.

If you take a fiberglass batt and it gets wet, it loses much, if not all, of its insulating properties. In that way, it can go bad. Now, will fiberglass insulation on it's own degrade up in an attic for 50 years? No. You can have fiberglass up in your attic — it's still going to be fiberglass. The only way that it might degrade is if somehow gravity or something else compresses it. Because, remember, it gets its insulating value from having a lot of air in it. You want to make sure insulation is fluffed up.

JS: Is there a rule of thumb on how often an attic should be reinsulated?

TC: There's no rule of thumb, it's just that you want to have the highest R-value in your attic or your walls that you can have. There does get to be a point of what I call diminishing returns. Meaning in my attic, when I built my own home, I put in 2 feet of blown-in fiberglass in my attic. At the time, the recommendation was only to have 13 inches. Well, I could afford to put in the 2 feet. I was doing it, it didn't cost me much money and I just thought, "I'm going to get a lot of benefit out of this insulation over the next 20 years."

You always have to kind of judge how long you are going to be there. Let's say you double the recommended thickness. Are you necessarily going to save double the money on your heating bill? The answer is no. You will not. You just have to do some mathematics.

Typically where people are going to save the most money is not so much in insulation as it's actually you want to go around your house and find where all the air leaks are. That's where the real energy robbing is happening. I'd be spending [more of] my time trying to find those air leaks than I would be just trying to add another foot of insulation in my attic.

JS: Can you put new or different insulation on top of old insulation?

TC: You can absolutely layer one type of insulation on top of another. You can mix the insulations back and forth. The only recommendation would be to always check with the manufacturer of the insulations you have and always make sure that they say it's OK.

I can't even imagine in my mind that you'd have some type of chemical reaction where you'd have a problem between the two, but it's always best before you mix two different materials to check with the manufacturer to make sure they say it's OK to do it.

JS: Is there anything else consumers should know about attic insulation?

TC: People should know that insulation is just part of the system. It's not the end all, be all of just trying to put something up in their attic. It's not a good enough thing just to insulate.

You have to couple insulation with fantastic ventilation. Let's say you put in 2 feet of insulation and you live in a hot climate and in the middle of the day your attic temperature soars to 150 degrees. Well, your insulation actually gets hot. Your insulation doesn't stay 70 degrees. If you put a thermometer in your insulation it could be 100 or 120 or 130 degrees. If you have great ventilation with your insulation, you may be actually moving enough air through the attic that you can cool your attic down to maybe 110 degrees. Well, there's a big difference between 110 and 150. And the same thing is true in the wintertime. You want to make sure you have great ventilation in the winter so that you don't have a lot of hot humid air that's seeping through your insulation, which it does, then condenses on your attic space causing the wood to get wet, causing mildew, mold and even to the point where it can actually drip onto the insulation.  Where, as we discussed earlier, if it gets wet, then it doesn't do a good job.

JS: Tell me about your newsletter and how people can subscribe to it.

TC: A lot of these tips I give, I do this for free each week and I have tens of thousands of people on my list. I have this neat personal newsletter that I send out once or twice a week and it's filled with e-mails I get from people with questions just like yours. I answer the questions. I talk about new products. I just talk about all kinds of neat home improvement tips and suggestions and people can get it by just going to my website, askthebuilder.com and right there at the top on the navigation bar you'll see the word “newsletter.” Just click that, sign up and that's all you gotta do. And it's all for free.

|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|


Phone interview on Jan. 5, 2009, between Jeremy Stacy, associate podcast producer for Angie’s List “List-en Up!” and Steve Reisman, owner of Everguard Insulation in Woodland Hills, Calif.

Jeremy Stacy: Please give me your name, your company and your location for the record.

Steve Reisman: My name is Steve Reisman and my company is Everguard Insulation. We're in Woodland Hills, Calif. 

JS: Tell me a little bit about your company.

SR: My grandfather started this company in 1959 and my dad threw me on the truck and had me working in the summer when I was 14 years old. I'm 44 now, so I guess about 30 years of experience. I've been the owner for about eight years and have been doing it full time for probably a good 20 years.

JS: How can consumers tell if it's time to add more insulation to their attic?

SR: That's a great question and I've got to kind of digress for a moment to tell you that insulation is extraordinarily similar to people and their cholesterol. It's something they know they should be concerned about, it's something that's very important, but it's the kind of thing that is very easily and routinely overlooked and relegated into the realm of not being all that important.

It's a very commonly overlooked thing that people have no idea about. Generally they'll look up in their attic and they'll see 2 or 3 or 4 inches of old material and they'll say, "Oh, that is the insulation," and that's it. They're content with figuring that's enough. Very few people realize that you really actually need to attain an R-30 rating, which is your standard building code.

There are two different materials generally out there. There's fiberglass and there's cellulose. The most common material is fiberglass and some of the older products, like mineral wool or rock wool, they have to be about 12 1/2 inches thick to give you an R-30 rating. So you’re looking at over 12 inches — a foot — to get that level. Very few people have that.

With the cellulose, which is much more efficient and effective, you have to have about 8 inches thick to give you an R-30 rating. Generally, the best thing to do is take a look up in the attic and see what you got. If you have, on average, 9 or 10 or 11 inches, you're pretty much in good shape. But most homes don't have nearly that much.

Even a brand new home has rolled in material, generally, and they roll in an R-30. But, the thing is, a rolled-in R-30 only yields about the same performance as a blown-in R-19. Even a brand new home with the rolled material definitely can improve quite a bit by laying thicker information.

JS: What does R-30 mean?

SR: The way insulation works is pretty simple. The insulation's performance level is measured in a resistance level and that's what the R stands for. So the R-value would indicate what the performance level of the insulation would be.

A long time ago they started out with a material that had a standard building code of what they call R-19. Very quickly they realized it wasn't quite enough and they went to R-30. And R-30 has been a standard building code since about 1974. Nowadays though, people who live more inland like the San Fernando Valley, they go with a newer material, which is R-38.

JS: Are there any unique insulation needs in your region of the country?

SR: No, I wouldn't say there's anything unique about it, per se. In the warmer, hotter areas we usually like to go with an R-38 material. Insulation will hold heat in the winter to keep the house warmer and in the summer it actually blocks heat from coming down. It reduces your energy bills and keeps your house more comfortable. You’re looking at a warmer home in the winter and a cooler home in the summer and an all around more energy efficient home.

JS: What factors should consumers consider when deciding between blown and batt insulation?

SR: Batt material is the only material you can use when a new home is under construction and using open framing because you can roll it in. But, once the home is built and the roof is up already there's a huge advantage in that you can use the blown-in material.

The blown application generally takes less time, so there's less labor involved and that means it's a little less expensive. But, more importantly, the blown application allows us to blow the material. When we blow it in, it covers the entire floor of the attic as a solid blanket of insulation. When that is blown in, that matter, as a solid blanket, they call that a monolithic fill. That effectively is 38 percent more efficient than the rolled material.

A rolled in R-30 only yields the equivalent of a blown-in R-19. The flip side of that is if a blown R-19 works as well as a rolled R-30.  Because when you blow it in it just covers over everything as a solid blanket. Plus, when we go with a blown material we can go with a cellulose insulation and cellulose insulation is much more effective, longer lasting and more efficient than the fiberglass material.

JS: What other factors should a homeowner consider when choosing an insulation product?

SR: When we go with a cellulose material, cellulose is only available as blown-in material. Cellulose is such a phenomenally better product than the fiberglass. The cellulose has a lifetime guarantee, it's non-toxic, non-corrosive, even considered hypoallergenic. The cellulose is resistant to insect, termite, rodent, vermin, mildew and fungus. It doesn't itch at all and it's even great for soundproofing.

The fiberglass product is the opposite. It does not have a lifetime guarantee.  Much like the cotton candy that it resembles, it tends to settle and pack over time. Fiberglass is extremely itchy, it has a hazard warning label on it, rats like to nest in it. It's just all around not as good of a material.  

JS: What questions should consumers ask when trying to find a good insulation contractor?

SR: Which material do you use? I very much recommend the cellulose insulation and the reason for that is the fiberglass material, as I mentioned before, resembles cotton candy. In the same manner when you blow fiberglass in it gets extremely fluffed up. Channel 4 did a big exposé on that and they called it the "Insulation Dirty Little Secret."

They call it shorting or fluffing and what it is, when you blow the stuff in, it can get incredibly fluffed up. Not the cellulose. Cellulose is a stabilized product. It does not get fluffed up. Fiberglass, though, does just because it's a bunch of glass fibers, like cotton candy, and it can get very fluffy.

So [unscrupulous insulation contractors] can blow it in and they can fluff it up and they can really cut corners that way. They can use a lot less material and still make the job look half decent. Also, most people will look at a job 8 or 9 inches thick and say "Wow, that's a lot." They don't realize fiberglass has to be 12 1/2 inches thick to get an R-30 out of it. You can give them less material and you can fluff the material when you install it. I would definitely warn people about using fiberglass and I would ask that the installer use cellulose insulation.

Also, use a reputable installer. You really want to avoid these larger companies that actually subcontract the work. That would be air conditioning companies that turn around and subcontract me or other companies like these general construction companies that just do marketing. They don't do anything more than advertise, send out a salesman who has a little price sheet and they basically subcontract the work. All you're doing is spending extra money to work directly with a contractor. I would ask them that, too.

How long you've been licensed and been in business? And do they have the license to do the insulation or are they just a general [contractor] subbing it out? Beyond that, I would also ask them what they charge per square foot.

Most companies, if they're more oriented to sending out a salesmen, they don't want to tell you what they charge per square foot. They'll say, "Oh we want to come out and check out the house," and that sort of thing. The want to turn it into a whole presentation in order to get out there and size you up to get better idea of what they think you would pay. Then they hit you with the price and if you don't take it, they decide to go ahead and lower the price to try and get you to sign up that day. If you don't take that [price], then they call their office and [say,] “Oh gosh, how about that, the general manager just authorized an additional [discount].” Basically, it's just a big game. If they're not willing to tell you over the phone what they'll charge per square foot, then they generally want to play the sales game.

JS: Is there anything else consumers should know about insulation that we haven't covered?

SR: You just want to make sure you get it done by a licensed contractor who has a competent record. You want to make sure they don't close the heat vents off and you want to make sure all the vents remain open and the lights aren't necessarily covered up and it's done by someone who knows what they're doing.

The other thing is there's a gas company rebate nowadays and just this year, they restarted the federal tax credit of 10 percent. So there are a lot of incentives out there.

The tax credit is very similar to giving to charity. All you have to do is let your accountant know that you insulated and they basically process that. Whatever you spend on insulation, 10 percent of that is a tax credit.

As far as the gas company rebate, that's just like a typical rebate where you have to mail in an application along with a bill and they basically send a rebate in the mail.


|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|

Phone interview on Jan. 5, 2009, between Jeremy Stacy, associate podcast producer for Angie’s List “List-en Up!” and Steve Carroll, owner of All Comfort Insulation in Addison, Ill.


Jeremy Stacy: Please give me your name, the name of your company and where you are located for the record.

Steve Carroll: Steve Carroll, All Comfort Insulation, Inc., Addison Ill. — Chicago area. We've been in business for 33 years.

JS: How can consumers tell if it's time to add more insulation to their attic?

SC: There's several ways. If they feel drafts or chilliness through the house, a lot of times that can be a lack of insulation in the attic. The reason being, the cold air is coming down and the warm air is rising and that will give a feeling of drafts through the home. That's one indication. High energy bills, the furnace or air conditioning recycling quite often [are other signs].

Another one is just visual. Go up and take a look in the attic. Different insulations have different R-factors per inch, but our general rule of thumb is you'd probably like to see a minimum of 12 inches of insulation up there. That's a very minimum. R-38 is the Department of Energy recommended minimum, which is roughly a blown-in fiberglass, which is about 14 1/2 or 12 inches of fiberglass batt. The optimum is R-49, which results in 18 1/2 inches of blown-in fiberglass.

JS: What factors should consumers consider when trying to decide between blown and batt insulation?

SC: Blown-in is more economical between the material and ease of installation. Basically it's an investment in your home, so you want to get a better return on your home. Blown in [insulation] works that way. It's costing you less. It's saving you energy so you're going to get a quicker return on it. Blanket insulation is more labor-intensive to put in. Basically what you're buying is R-factor. That's the performance value.

In some attics where it's very accessible, easy to reach everything, batt insulation for the homeowner – do it yourself – would be a good way to do it. If they're handy and careful, they can put that in and all they're paying for is materials. There's quicker return on their investment.

JS: How do you make insulation recommendations to homeowners?

SC: We make an assessment of the insulation they have up there — their R-values — and what we usually do is give them an option. Get it up to the minimum [recommended R-value] or go up to the optimum [R-value]. We leave that up to the homeowner. It depends on what their expenses will allow. We also look at the ventilation, which is just as important when you insulate.

JS: What should consumers consider when deciding between blown cellulose and blown fiberglass?

SC: Fiberglass, like Owens Corning and CertainTeed, are billion dollar corporations. They put a lot into the insulation — research and development — they're high-performing, high-quality materials. Fiberglass is non-combustible, it won't rot, it won't absorb moisture.

On the other hand, cellulose is recycled product — newspaper that's ground up — and about 20 percent of the weight is chemicals. So, more people are thinking green and thinking of not putting chemicals in their home. Most of the higher-end fiberglass have no chemicals in it and most of the major manufacturers of fiberglass are now considered green because they're using anywhere from 35 to 40 percent recycled products.

Hand in hand, they're both green products. Cellulose uses more chemicals to make it rodent and fire retardant. One benefit that cellulose has over fiberglass per inch is it has a higher R-value. Any insulation contractor, we have to sell a product on R-factors.

JS: In terms of blown insulation, do you recommend cellulose or fiberglass?

SC: I recommend the fiberglass. The reason we do it is because most fiberglass manufacturers have a lot of development and research in the product so we feel that's a good insurance behind the product. I feel a lot safer doing it.

Cellulose, they're smaller companies, there's not as much investment into it. They do research and that, but we just feel it's a good insurance policy with the blown in fiberglass. I will lay out on the line the different products and R-factors and I won't twist any arms to let them decide on what I tell them.

JS: Does the Chicago area have any unique insulation needs?

SC: Insulation works year-round. Florida and the sun states during the summer with the air conditioning and electrical use, that's when the highest loads are. Here [in Chicago], we get the hot, humid summers where people are running air conditioners and need insulation then. Then we get the cold winters. Our climate, the way it changes, sometimes it seems hourly, but it's daily, there's a great need ¬¬— one for the insulation and second for the ventilation ¬— we just don't run into one pattern. It's up and down. It's why ventilation is an important part of the way we insulate.

JS: Why is ventilation so important?

SC: Ideally, you want to keep the attic within one degree of the outside temp, which is very hard to do. But, what it does is during the summer when you have ventilation, you're using the natural physics of the air coming in and rising against the deck and pulling out the hot air. Insulation keeps it from penetrating into the house, but if you keep the heat out naturally with the ventilation, it's going to be a less load on the insulation. Then, come winter, insulation is keeping the heat in the home. But, the ventilation, what that does is keep the attic within one degree so you don't have condensation problems and it helps with ice damming. It's a reason why ventilation plays a big part, especially in our region with the climate and how it varies.

JS: Is there anything you can recommend to the consumer about insulation that we haven't talked about?

SC: Have [the insulation] assessed by a qualified contractor and then there's just little things they can do around the home like outlet seals and making sure weather stripping around the doors are properly fitted and sealed.  Just make sure you pick a qualified contractor that’s properly insured. Check, through Angie's List, the Better Business Bureau and make sure if you have any questions or issues it's something the contractor is going to be there and stand behind.

Ask [contractors] about the ventilation, "Is my ventilation fine or what can you do to rectify it?" Make sure they are selling [insulation] in R-factors and that it's stated on the proposal what kind of R-factor they're putting in there. Define what product they're using. Not just blown or fiberglass, but manufacturer and make sure the contractor is fully insured.