Air sealing services in Watsonville CA - a tighter house with fewer drafts

The draft you feel by the window usually isn't where most of the air is getting out, because the big leaks sit overhead around can lights, pipes, flues and the attic hatch, where nobody looks. If the upstairs runs stuffy or the power bill seems high for the house, attic air sealing is often most of the job. The price moves with how many gaps there are, how hard they are to reach and whether anything unsafe has to be fixed first. The schedule mostly turns on those repairs and on whether insulation goes in afterward. I look at the space in person and write the estimate from what I actually see, so you get a number for your house and not a guess.

Sealing is prep, and in a kitchen you set up your station before you cook, so nothing goes in until the attic is ready. I go up first and look for anything that has to be fixed before we seal, because closing up over a roof leak or bad wiring just hides the problem. We also check any gas appliance that vents on its own draft before a single gap gets closed. Then our crew seals around lights, pipes, wiring, flues, duct openings and the attic hatch, with caulk or foam on narrow cracks and solid blocking sealed in place over the big openings, because insulation slows heat but lets air straight through. We keep the eave vents clear so the attic can still breathe, any new insulation goes in after the sealing, and I check the work before we call it done.

Some leaks run past the attic. When they reach down into the floor below, basement insulation can go in once the gaps there are closed. Where moisture is the worry, closed-cell foam insulation, a dense foam that blocks moisture, seals and insulates in one coat.

Whether a sealing job here needs a permit is the city's call and not something I'll guess at, so we check with the city or county office that covers your address, and if it needs one we pull it and line up the inspections. If you'd like to ask yourself, the city's Building Division answers plan check questions at 831-768-3050 and reviews most home projects over the counter on Wednesdays. When insulation goes in after the sealing, the city lists Watsonville in Climate Zone 4 of the California Energy Code, the state's building energy rules, so that's the zone we work to.

The city also rates termite exposure in Watsonville as very high. The same gaps that let drafts in around pipes and wires can let pests in, so we close them and tell you about any damaged wood we spot while we're up there. We're based in Watsonville and do the same sealing work on jobs in Santa Cruz, Salinas and plenty of the cities around them.