Over the past month, I did several things in prep of adding insulation to the attic before it gets really cold.
1) I added the soffit baffles. These are plastic trays that are stapled to the underside of the roof. The purpose into channel cooler air from inside the soffit up towards the ridge vent.
A few of the rafter sections were non-standard widths and I needed to cut a few down to about 8 inches in width and staple the halfs together.
Once I finished that, the next step was to insert blocks at the bottom of the baffles in order to stop 2 things: 1) Insulation from falling into the soffit, blocking the intake holes and 2) Stopping wind from blowing away the edges of the insulation (I going to use blown insulation). Anyway, I used leftover polyiso board and made 4 4=15 inch pieces and inserted them vertically into the outer edge of the ceiling (attic floor) .
Finally, I then went back, took some Great Stuff and closed up the various holes around the perimeter of each block.
The worst part of this whole job is the fact that it is hard to reach and dusty. A headlamp was a good help but the dust mask fogged my glasses. The old insulation (the house is 30 years old) had accumulated dust and when I pulled it back, it was quite dusty.
The final task was to re-place the slide back fiberglass insulation which went really fast.
All work progressed steadily and the slowest parts were the special cuts in both the baffles and the blocks. I used 4 cans of Great Stuff for a 1350s quare foot attic.
Job Done: estimated time 8 hours.
Off to structures