Attic Insulation Case Studies: Mold and frozen sheathing in Davisburg, MI
Challenge
The homeowner had gone into his attic during the winter and noticed that his roof sheathing was completely frozen and that he had black discoloration all over the sheathing as well. The symptoms of the problem was condensation dripping off of the roofing nails onto the insulation below and on the drywall ceiling causing moisture stains. Black staining was also present on the roof deck and the roof deck was saturated from all of the condensation. The problem was caused by all the gaps in the fiberglass insulation allowing warm air from the home to enter the attic and condensate when coming in contact with the cold roof. The intake ventilation was also improper, receiving too much intake to the amount of exhaust ventilation installed for the square foot of the attic. The homeowner chose to have the problem fixed because he did not want mold growth in his house causing allergies for him and his wife and he also did not want to have further issues with the amount of condensation building up in his attic causing moisture stains on the drywall ceiling. The homeowners biggest concern was the amount of condensation that was building up in the attic during the winter months and then mold growth forming when the weather warmed up the attic.
Solution
The homeowner chose our company because we were able to come up with a solution that would fix all of the problems within the attic and we were able to also insulate the attic and not just provide a mold remediation service. He liked that we were able to tackle the entire problem. Our solution was to remove all of the insulation on the attic floor in order to seal all of the penetrations on the attic floor that were allowing warm air to leak into the attic during the winter months (top plate, bond plate wire penetrations, pipe penetrations ect.). We then remediated the mold in the attic to have a clean healthy attic. We insulated a can light cover over the recessed light fixture, air sealed and insulated the hatch cover. We installed baffles into the soffit vents to make sure they were breathing properly and then installed cellulose insulation to R60 on the attic floor. The only challenge that we faced during the installation was getting down the vaulted ceiling in order to install the baffles as the roof sheathing was close to the ceiling making it difficult to squeeze between the ceiling and roof safety. We used MoldX2 products, DuroVent baffles, SilverGlo, weather-stripping, titeshell recessed light fixture cover, ZypFoam and TruSoft Cellulose. The homeowner is now saving money on his energy bills and is no longer experiencing humidity in his attic causing freezing of the roof deck during the winter months.
