I'll admit that I was a bit hesitant about this before, but I knew something had to happen this winter to the insulation in my attic. My furnace was kicking on every 45 minutes or so just to keep the house at 63F :| My parents suggested blow-in as they had just had it completed recently. They immediately felt a huge difference in the ambient air of their house. Post-install, their furnace was coming on only once during the evenings to keep their house in the low 70s. This was not the case previously. They've also noticed a dramatic reduction in their energy costs in the last two months of running heat with the added insulation. They went with Aladdin (http://www.aladdininsulation.com/) Insulation and had nothing but great things to say about them. I gave Aladdin a call earlier in this month and asked for an estimate to be done. FWIW, my attic is about 1200-1400 sq feet. They estimated somewhere in the middle of that as well. They took applicable measurements, including the depth of insulation that I had currently. I had about 5" :rofl: The current energy-star recommendation for our region is ~21" at R60. The gentleman that came to my house to do the estimate arrived promptly and was extremely professional. His name was Chuck and I received 10% off for being a referral customer. I let him know that I wanted the first available appointment slot to have the work done. This was done primarily because I knew my gas bill would be wicked high if I didn't do this ASAP. It helps that I snuck in just before year's end and will be able to take advantage of the 30% of cost tax credit. Read more on the tax credit(s) available to you here, http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=tax_credits.tx_index. I went back and forth before pulling the trigger thinking, "Yeah, definitely, yeah, I can do this myself". If there's a DIY option I usually take it. I enjoy spending time working with my hands and especially enjoy trying new projects. I'm a new homeowner, which means I've had to the pleasure (or displeasure) of working on several new projects throughout the year. Utimately it was time, or the lack there of, that sealed the deal for me. Unbelievably, the Aladdin crew arrived 30 minutes early! What blew my mind was that they called to ask if it was alright that they arrived before their scheduled appointment time. Furthermore, Jason, the project manager so to speak, was extremely courteous, professional and rather jovial to boot. The other two members in his crew were also extremely courteous. The three of them took great care in not scratching, nicking, whatever-ing my hardwood floors. They cleaned up their mess and a little more after they were done. They finished within 2 hours, despite my interruptions of questions. Which, by the way, they were more than happy to answer. The above concluded about 4 hours ago. In that time, I raised the ambient in my house several degrees and have not heard the furnace kick on for a second time. I'm in love I wrote this post up to see if anyone else was on the fence about having insulation work done. I fully recommend Aladdin Insulation. If you mention that you were referred by me, a previous customer, then you'll receive that 10% off your bill too :tup:
I did it myself and it really makes a difference. If you haven't swapped your ac unit for something 12 seer or higher you are really throwing away some serious money.
Did you remove the old blown-in insulation first? I want to get mine removed before I put new stuff in seeing as though the stuff in there now is 20+ years old.
as long as your old insulation isn't moldy or asbestos (which it shouldn't be unless its pre-1980), then its ok to leave in there. otherwise, if you have any doubt go ahead and throw it out. asbestos requires special licensed companies to remove and isnt cheap. and you can rent insulation blowers for a $200 deposit at lowes plus like $50 a day (shouldn't take you longer than a few hours to do a typical 1200-1500sq/ft house), and they also sell the insulation itself, its VERY easy but also VERY messy.
I've seen the perforated ones with the flexible brown paper with fiberglass insulation in between. It's those pre-cut ones. Was thinking of buying a few rolls of those for top of my bedroom just to test it out. How much did it end up costing Alex?
About $1200. They'll guarantee a 24 month break even on the install or you get zee monies back. They also have a free-of-charge disturbance policy. For example, if I get someone out to kill the squirrels in my attic and they have to displace any of the insulation I can call Aladdin and they'll come out and blow additional in at no charge to me for as long as I live at this house. I couldn't really find a loss to their win-win proposal other than the upfront investment. If you're thinking about it, and semi on the fence as I was, you owe it to yourself to at least get a quote from these guys or any other company and compare it to the cost of your time dealing with the mess of insulation. And yes, it is shocking to get good customer service nowadays. Oh and did I mention it took two hours, if not a little less? I would have spent five times that with the machines that I could have rented at the Home Repot or Lowes. Instead, I was able to work from home today which allowed me some much needed time to catch up on a TON of emails and PMs. Worth the money? You betcha.