re: spray foam in attic

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They have run from $7000 to around $9000 without removal of existing insulation. My house has a high pitch roof as well and my upstairs area is about 800sqft living, but it's only 1.5 stories so the attic floor is also the downstairs ceiling in a lot of places. I'm not sure what my attic square footage is.

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I'm sure you've already considered this, but may not want outlay that much expense unless this is your forever home.

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your situation sounds exactly like mine with the bonus room

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same here. and the windows on bonus room face west. how much attic is there above your bonus room? i have a walk out from the room with a little ladder to climb to area over the bonus. it dosn't look like more than about 2-3 feet of space up there. the thought of shimmying around up there trying to staple radiant barrier sounds terrible

The non-monetary benefit of being comfortable on the second floor of the house outweighs most of that for me. I'm not looking at it strictly from an investment standpoint.

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The non-monetary benefit of being comfortable on the second floor of the house outweighs most of that for me. I'm not looking at it strictly from an investment standpoint.

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Not sure I've seen the term "1.5" story before what does that mean.

I added a split unit to cool my second story (for $5,000), it's worked great and will likely add to the resale value, the additional insulation may not.

gotcha, thanks and good luck. Keep us update, this kind of stuff intrigues me.

OP - this article might help answer your question - author has a Ph.D., in physics, is a forensic building inspector and home energy specialist. Also happens to be from down the bayou originally - Chauvin, Louisiana.

3 Reasons to Remove Attic Floor Insulation in a Spray Foam Attic

Though he advocates removal, and explains his 3 reasons why, he also states he’s been in homes where existing fiberglass insulation wasn’t removed with no apparent issues, but it’s a risk.

I'm about to lay plywood over all the crossbeams in my attic that have foam between them to create more storage space. I was considering putting a radiant barrier down first.

Will that do anything? And is it better to do it under or over the plywood flooring panels?

Anyone come across a situation like mine:
I’m also a 1.5 story home (Acadian style, 3 dormers on one side, one large dormer on the other). There is a front and rear porch space that are under the attic with that blue vinyl non-perforated material under both porches. The garage is also not under any livable space, so there’s probably north of 2000sqft of attic space that I could gain as conditioned storage. But 850 of that had that material underneath it- does that also get “sealed” with foam, or does that style just complicate the matter? The roof itself was recently replaced and is 80 squares, so it’s already going to be a pretty hefty price tag, I’m not certain that a bit more on the floor is necessarily a dealbreaker.


My energy company does audits, and I’m going to have them take a look before too much longer, I’m way more interested in increasing semi-controlled and non-humid attic space than maximizing the efficiency of the house. But as some have alluded to- some companies seem a little spray-happy and don’t really bother to explain why certain features of a house are basically incompatible with a seal/foam/encapsulated approach.

HVAC guy seems to think the unit there would do fine- recently replaced one, went variable speed for that reason.


And, while I don’t necessarily “need” all that space (I don’t nearly have the stuff to fill it up), the concept of using the attic for organization/storage, retrofitting a central vac and then turning some of it into a nice workbench area seems very intriguing.