Attic Stairs Insulation, Short Work But Long Term Investment
Wow, you bought your first house and you want your money's worth, and you need some attic stairs insulation. If you think about it, your little pull down kit is letting out all your heat. You don't even want to go up there as you know that last weeks pay check will follow you right up and out. Should attics be this scary? No. Once you start to understand the thermal dynamics it is pretty simple. You will also see why living in a concrete cave is not a good option. As humans, we have done it right!!! Using that knowledge will keep your attic with insulation from becoming a pneumonia port.
First, let us start at the basics. Air moves energy. You light a fire, it warms the air, it rises and escapes though the attic well. We need to stop this! Should we encase our homes in concrete to stand this madness? No, what we want to do is to use those very same properties in our favor. Let us put on our thinking caps a bit and forget about folding stairs.
In the basics, let's explore a rock. It does take quite a bit to heat all the way though, but once done will radiate heat for days. That was the principal involved in large fire places, they never got cold. Now we can shift this to air.
Air heats and cools very quickly. Used right, this is to our advantage. The very thermodynamic principal that leads to heat loss can save use as well. We know that air conducts heat rather freely. How can we make that work for us and our attic ventilation situation.
Air is our key. One might think the concrete a better option but this is not the case at all. We have all seen rolls of isolation. It is not flat and compressed, it is airy and has holes all in it. That is the key to why it works so well, by holding air. The many cells of insulation keep the energy from being transformed from you cozy house to the great out-of-doors
Now that being said, we should look out at your little pull down attic kit. Is it as as well insulated as the rest of the attic? Very doubtful unless you live in an older home before they realized that heat rises. So this leaves us with a few options. We need to insulate the ladder for one.
Insulation of attic stairs kits is pretty straight forward. Do what carpenters did to the ceiling!! Insulation cuts rather cleanly: do attic stairs insulation and with a small paper mask you should do just fine. .Now you need to worry about vermin. There are ways to lay traps that let them out but not back in. If you have bats it is worse. Only during certain seasons can they be evicted. You don't want mummified bat babies up there!!
That should get you on your way with plugging up an energy hole. A little touch of insulating an attic and you will notice the drop in power bills. Attic stairs with insulation are your first big start.
