Dense pack cellulose in rafters

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Permalink Reply by Timothy DeLuca on November 4, 2011 at 9:29pm

Hey Brad,

My two cents,

1. Build some "hats" around the cans. look up can light tophats on the net. You can manufacture these 'hats' with drywall or sheet metal. I think the clearance from the cans is 3". Get a good system and fabricate. That is a lot of lights.

 

2. Seal the hell out of every duct joint that you you can get your hands on with mastic, including plenums.

 

3. wrap all duct work including returns, supply and plenums with FSK fiberglass...R-19..tape well.

 

4. plug all penetrations, bypasses in lid from attic.

 

5. blow loose fill cellulose or fiberglass to a minimum R-38.

 

If you blow rafters with netting your thermal boundary not be aligned (insulation + air barrier). You could pack into a plastic "netting" and possibly incur moisture liability.

 

there are my two cents....in this economy they are probably only worth one anyway.

 

please let me know what you come up with, as I am learning and would love to know what your solution is.

 

tim

 

 

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by David Meiland on November 5, 2011 at 9:45am

The can lights are in the attic floor, you are asking about insulating the rafters, correct?

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Permalink Reply by Brad Brinke on November 5, 2011 at 1:23pm

Yes, another weatherization company in my area has done this for a client I did an audit for.  I do not see the advantage in dense packing the rafters.

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Permalink Reply by David Meiland on November 7, 2011 at 7:52am

What size are the rafters? With cellulose insulation you are going to need to install baffles for ventilation of the roof deck, so take that into account as you figure the max R value you can achieve that way, and compare it with what you could do with loose fill on the attic floor. But, the wild card is the mechanical equipment and all those can lights, and it may be that overall higher efficiency can be had by turning this into a conditioned attic by insulating the roof. I believe it is more common to condition an attic by spray-foaming the roof, but it probably varies regionally.

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Permalink Reply by Rod Fox on November 10, 2011 at 9:37am

At $4300, you could replace all of those lights with these:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_78215-3-70644_4294857050_4294937087_?produc...

They tend to leak very little and throw out a decent amount of light for LEDs.

And, over time, they would pay for themselves (not sure what that would be though, you do the math :-)

85 recessed lights seems a bit excessive... They might consider mudding over half of them and using task lights instead... sheesh.

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Permalink Reply by Brad Brinke on November 10, 2011 at 1:49pm

It was a ton of lights.  Turns out the dense pack did not work.  Test in 2755cfm50, test out 4500cfm50

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Permalink Reply by Jim Peck on November 12, 2011 at 2:49am

Me thinks something is wrong there

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Permalink Reply by Rod Fox on November 12, 2011 at 8:29am

Me also thinks something is wrong there with your in and out tests. Baseline fluctuating from wind? That's a huge difference in readings. And with the dense pack, I would expect the test out to actually be lower rather than higher.

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Permalink Reply by Bud Poll on November 12, 2011 at 8:45am

Brad, did you/they change anything with those lights, are they 85 leakier holes now?  And what did you do with the ventilation?

 

Bud

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Permalink Reply by Brad Brinke on November 12, 2011 at 9:36am

I am not involved in the project at this point.  I did the initial audit only and not the test out.  The WX contractor dense packed the rafters and did no other air sealing.  The homeowner wanted to expand the home into the attic and that is one reason that they dense packed.  So, the test out number is a bit misleading because they added about 1400 sq feet of "conditioned" space.  I have not been back to the house since they did this and my original concern was that it was not the best option for the homeowner.

 

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Permalink Reply by Craig Bird on December 8, 2011 at 12:56pm

Sounds like this is done, but for anyone interested, there is a much more cost effective solution to air seal all of these cans. Everyone talks about building a "box" over each can light...very labor intensive and on sloped roofs, very difficult access in many situations. There is a retrofit air tight trim that may be installed from the bottom. It is cone shape and has the gasket on the top where it clips into the socket, and the rim just gets caulked to the drywall. Simple. They are only $5 a piece and take 5  minutes to install. They are for 6" cans only and will not fit in a low profile can. Here is a link www.affordablequalitylighting.com/docs/indoor/recessed/6in120vstand... . That is the only place I have ever found these and I have done probably 300 lights and never built a drywall box in the attic. Combine them with a good quality R30 fluorescent and you can have a big savings package.

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Permalink Reply by Rod Fox on December 8, 2011 at 1:10pm

Craig, thanks much for that link to the retrofit trims! I've been looking for something like that for quite a while.

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