Attic Insulation Photo Album: Hot Attic in Fredericksburg VA

This Fredericksburg home owner called us because their home was uncomfortable. They couldn't get the top floor to keep an even cool temperature and their HVAC system wasn't successfully delivering cold air to the rooms in the home. Our Sales Pro Tim took a look in the attic and was able to determine one of the main reasons why. The attic was not well insulated and had no air seal. This meant that conditioned air from inside the home was able to leave through numerous small cracks and vents in the ceiling, and the attic had nothing keeping the hot temperatures outside from heating it up. This left an extremely hot space right above the rooms on the top floor of the house with no real barrier except the drywall on the ceiling. The hot attic air reaching as high as 138 degrees was sitting on top of the bedrooms and hallways of the top floor of the home. We have numerous ways to insulate, create a radiant barrier and air seal this attic to help stop this problem.

138 degrees in this section of the attic

This heat imaging camera shows exactly where the hottest places in the attic are. This helps to make a game plan for the right service and materials needed to solve the problem.

Insulation is not effective on its own.

This insulation had been blown in and was covering some of the attic surface, but the heat was coming from above. The HVAC duct seen here trying to let cold air pass through it was sitting in a space reaching up to 138 degrees. Effectively heating the air passing through the hot tube.

Insulation without air sealing leaves gaps

The place where this pipe extended from the floor below was not air sealed. This meant conditioned air from below could escape the rooms it was intended to cool. The metal pipe was also being heated as it was in a space reaching 130 to 138 degrees.

Heat imaging tells the story

The yellow seen on the attic roof is heat from outside radiating into the attic space. We have material that can act against that and keep that heat outside.

HVAC ducts passing through a hot attic

These ducts are wrapped but are also sitting exposed in the hot attic air. The best option here would be to either bury the HVAC ducts in the insulation or to spray foam insulate them.