A few months ago I solicited some estimates to get my attic insulated. My house was built in the early ’70’s and I doubt if anything has ever been added to the original fiberglass that was up there when the place was built.
I chose Wilson Insulation because the Better Business Bureau offered an A+ rating for them and because the estimate they provided was in line with what I felt the job should cost given the options that I had decided upon.
My expectation was that the job involved placing caps over all of my recessed lighting fixtures (about 24 in total), that there would be baffles extended along the soffit edges of the roof, there would be dams around the attic access hatch and that the insulation in the attic would be brought to R49. Which, at an R-value of around 2.7 – 4 for blown fiberglass insulation should result in a total of about 12 – 18 inches total including the existing fiberglass.
The workers showed up a week ago last Tuesday (December 22) at around 9:30 or so to do the work and were finished a little before 1 pm. When they were done the access hatch had not been attended to. So they added some batts to the hatch cover and put some weatherstripping around it but told me that they did not have a dam that would be small enough for the hatch.
Dan (the rep from Wilson Insulation) came over later that day to inspect the hatch and the work generally and indicated that he was surprised that they did not have the dam but that he was waiting for a call back from their boss to figure out what could be done.
He also indicated that they were pretty skeletonized due to the season. I’m not a particularly impatient person so I allowed that this could be deferred until Monday (December 28) and we can finally sort it out.
Interestingly one of my recessed fixtures in the living room is now pushing out of the ceiling on one side by about an inch. I can’t push it back from inside the house so it will have to be addressed from within the attic.
I did popped up into the attic check to see if the baffles had been installed – and found that there were exactly none present. I also see that there appears to be between about 11 and 15 total inches of insulation up there. It’s kind of rolling so it’s hard to determine a good average. Does anybody know what a reasonable R-value is to use for blown fiberglass? The range above is a bit broad.
I spoke with Dan on Monday. He told me they’d be calling later to set up an appointment to come by and correct anything that was not done correctly.
When I hadn’t heard from Wilson Insulation by Wednesday, I gave them a call and spoke with Jack. He seemed congenial and we set up an appointment for Tuesday at 10 am. I’ll let you know how it goes.