Attic air sealing in Watsonville CA - a less drafty house, ready for insulation

Most people call because the upstairs runs hot, the room over the garage never feels right, the power bill keeps climbing in an older house they just bought, or they're planning attic insulation and want it done in the right order. Bad news first. The gaps hide under whatever insulation is already up there, so the price mostly turns on how much of it we have to move and how many holes run through your ceiling, and the schedule turns on whether a roof, wiring or fan problem has to be fixed before we start. The estimate puts a figure on your attic once it's been looked at in person.

We set up the way a kitchen sets up a station before service, so our crew moves the old insulation back to uncover the attic floor, and anything soaked or full of droppings comes out instead of getting buried under new work. Most of the job after that is caulk and foam around the wires, pipes and flues that run through the attic floor, plus the hatch, the tops of the walls and the openings around ceiling ducts and fans, because that's where the drafts come up. Around flues, the pipes that carry exhaust, we use fire-rated caulk and metal collars and keep anything that can burn at a safe distance. The vents meant to breathe, at the eaves, the ridge and the gable ends, stay open so the attic doesn't trap moisture in the framing. Once the gaps are closed, the insulation goes back down or new insulation goes on top, and we clean up so the place looks the way we found it.

Air sealing is often the first half of a bigger job. If what's up there is thin or tired, retrofit insulation goes in right after the sealing, and in some attics spray foam insulation seals and insulates in one layer instead.

Permits come first. The City of Watsonville Building Division reviews construction plans, inspects work while it's underway and handles permits in one place, and its building inspection staff answer residents' questions about home improvement rules, so you can ask them about your attic too. We don't assume either way on whether your job needs a permit, so we check with the city, or the county if that's the office that covers your address, and when it does need one we pull it and line up the inspections.

On jobs around here we see a lot of older houses with patched ceilings, wiring added over the years and insulation that's been settling for decades. It's the same mix we find in Santa Cruz and Salinas, so we plan for it before anyone climbs up.