Seal attic bypasses allowing heated air to escape from you house into the attic.
Why You Should Do It
Want to be comfortable in your home and save money while you’re at it? It's a basic but important physical lesson - hot air rises. All those little leaks allowing hot air out of your home and into your attic are costing you, both by creating drafts and by potentially damaging your roof and walls with ice dams. In a day you can easily plug up those leaks and – ta da! – savings and comfort.
What It Costs
You can find all the materials you need for less than $100.
How to Do It
- Select “Add to My Challenge” and pledge to seal your attic bypasses.
- Decide whether to DIY or hire a contractor.
- If you want to sav money and do it yourself, check out the Family Handyman guide to sealing attic bypasses and gather your correct materials.
- Before you ever go into your attic, make sure you walk around your house and note where you see recessed lights, chimneys, flues and other things that will need sealing.
- Hit the biggest holes first.
- Insulate your attic hatch last.
- Congratulate yourself for saving energy and money and making a difference for Minnesota!
Common Misconceptions
It doesn’t matter if hot air gets into my attic, it’s still part of my house.
It all depends whether your attic is part of your living space. Is your attic meant to be heated or not? If you have a finished attic and use it as part of your living space, then you would want hot air in your attic so it’s livable. But if you don’t have a finished attic, then when hot air leaks into the attic, you’re losing money.
Not to mention that hot air can cause ice dams to form on your roof. Those are caused when snow on your roof melts. You’ll see icicles forming on your gutters and eaves where the water refreezes, forming effective dams that can force water back up under your roof shingles, through your sheathing and into the house. It goes without saying that ice dams are BAD NEWS.
And the most effective way to prevent ice dams and all the costly damage that comes with them? Sealing your attic bypasses.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Q.
What are the most common sources of attic air leaks?
You want to start looking around the attic hatch, wiring holes, plumbing vents, recessed lights, your furnace flue and any open soffits. Basically, any time something comes from your nice warm, heated house and penetrates into the cold, unheated attic, you need to seal around it.
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Q.
How can I find out if air is leaking into my attic?
There are two good signs that an attic air leak is stealing your warmth and comfort. First, if you have fiberglass insulation, look for batts that are black in certain areas. This would mean that air is filtering up through the insulation, which is capturing the dirt and such coming with it.
Secondly, look for cobwebs where cobwebs shouldn’t be, like down near the floor and away from any vents. Spiders only spin cobwebs where they know they have a good chance of catching food – and that means air leaks that might bring tasty morsels within their grasp.