Attic air sealing in San Clemente CA - rooms that hold their temperature

Most calls start with an upstairs that runs hot, a drafty room over the garage, or a power bill that keeps climbing even though there's insulation up there. Price mostly follows how many openings need sealing, like can lights, pipes and the hatch, and how easy your attic is to move around in. The schedule turns on what has to happen first. Live knob and tube wiring, the old cloth-wrapped kind strung on porcelain knobs, vermiculite insulation or a leaking roof all get dealt with before any sealing starts, so tell us if you know of one. Your estimate is written out step by step, so you can see what comes first and why.

We work across the attic floor and pull back insulation where air usually gets through, around can lights, pipes, wiring holes and the hatch itself. Dark streaks in the insulation show us where air has been moving through it, much like dirt on a furnace filter, so we know where to look. We seal those gaps and leave the vents that need to breathe open, because a buried eave vent stops the attic from drying out and moisture ends up in the framing. Once the gaps are closed, we put the old insulation back where it's still in good shape and even it out so the edges aren't left thin.

Sealing is usually the first half of an attic upgrade. Many attics need more on top once the leaks are closed, and adding to what's already there is retrofit insulation. Foam costs more but seals air while it insulates, so spray foam insulation makes sense when your ductwork runs through the attic. Otherwise, sealing the gaps and topping up loose fill usually wins.

San Clemente issues mechanical, plumbing and electrical permits. Its list names jobs like water heater replacements, gas piping, HVAC work and electrical service upgrades but not air sealing, so that list alone doesn't settle whether your job needs a permit. When a job calls for one, we pull it as the licensed contractor and handle the inspections, and when we're not sure, we check with the city before we start. You can look over the city's permits page yourself. The city also strongly discourages the owner builder route, where you act as your own contractor, because you'd carry the liability for bad work by anyone you hire.

We're based in San Clemente and work across south Orange County. The attics we open here look a lot like the ones in Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano, with can lights, bath fans and plumbing cut through the ceiling over the years and ducts running across the attic floor.