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Warning: Don't skip air sealing your attic like I did

I had my attic reinsulated last spring by a crew in St. Albert and they told me to seal all the gaps first but I figured it was fine to skip it. Now my upstairs bedrooms are still COLD no matter how much I crank the heat, and my gas bill went up almost $80 a month. Has anyone else learned this lesson the hard way after a reno?

2 comments

2 Comments

laura_wright1d agoOG Member

I had a buddy in Calgary who did the exact same thing with his 1980s bungalow. He paid a crew $3,200 for blown-in cellulose and skipped sealing around the attic hatch and a few plumbing vents. Six months later his bedroom was still drafty and he was burning through natural gas like crazy. I get the urge to save time and money but that air barrier is the whole point of the insulation. Without it you're basically heating the outside. The crew was right to warn you.

riley_west1d ago

Dang, that's wild. Three thousand two hundred bucks and he just left the attic hatch unsealed? That's like throwing a handful of twenties out the window every month. I get wanting to save a few bucks on labor but skipping the sealing part is the whole point, you're right. The crew probably felt bad having to warn him like that, but they were just trying to keep him from wasting his money. It's crazy how many people think insulation alone will fix everything when really it's the air sealing that does the heavy lifting.