Attic Insulation Case Studies: Home Sale Remediation & Insulation upgrade, Brighton
Challenge
The homeowner explained that she had mold in her attic after an initial home inspection was made for a home sale. The symptoms of the problem were mold growth on the sheathing and trusses in the attic and rusted roofing nails. The problem was caused by the soffits being blocked and not allowing air to pass through the soffits up to the ridge vent. The attic also had between R-6 and R-11 insulation on the attic floor which was not providing an adequate thermal boundary between the conditioned space inside the home and the unconditioned space in attic. The homeowner chose to have the problems fixed in her attic because she was in the process of trying to sell her home but faced with rejection from possible buyers because of the mold in her attic. The homeowner's biggest concern with the problem was not being able to find someone interested in buying the home while mold was present in the home.
Solution
The homeowner chose our company because of our fast response time for an inspection to our production date. We were able to have a thorough discussion with the homeowner on the best solution for remediating the mold in the attic and preventing it from recurring. Our solution was to remove all the mold that was in the attic and make sure that the soffit vents were breathing properly and had directional airflow up to the roof deck to be vented out the ridge vent. Our next step was to add R-60 Cellulose insulation to make sure the attic floor had a proper amount of insulation for the Michigan climate zone. The only challenge we came across was that it had rained on the day we were going to blow in the insulation so we had to cancel production day to another day that was weather permitting. We used a combination of products to get the attic healthy and properly insulated. We used a HEPA vacuum, RMR-86 and RMR-141 to remove the mold from the sheathing and trusses then installed Durovent baffles to all of the bays with soffit vents. We then installed 15" of TruSoft Cellulose insulation on top of the existing blown fiberglass insulation to achieve an R-60 Thermal Boundary. The homeowner now has a mold free attic that will pass a home inspection so she can sell her home and also has an excellent selling feature with her attic now being energy efficient for Michigan's climate zone. Home was put back on the market and sold immediately.
