Air sealing services in Clarksville TN - a tighter house with the vents left open

Most people call us about a hot upstairs, a cold room over the garage or a bill that climbs every winter, and the leaks behind it are usually around can lights, pipes, wires and the attic hatch, hiding under the old insulation. The price turns on how big your attic is and how easy it is to get around in, how much old insulation has to be pulled back, how many of those gaps there are and whether there's a furnace or fireplace flue to seal around. The schedule turns on what the first look finds, because a roof leak or questionable insulation gets settled before we seal anything. Plans to add attic insulation afterward change both, and the estimate is where you get your own number.

Before we seal anything, I look at how your furnace, stove or fireplace gets its air and vents its exhaust, because a fuel-burning appliance that runs short of air can give off dangerous gases like carbon monoxide. Then we check the attic for old knob and tube wiring that's still live, vermiculite insulation, roof leaks, bath fans that blow into the attic instead of outside, unvented heaters or gas fireplaces, and any flooring up there, since each of those gets dealt with before the gaps get closed. Once that's clear, our crew pulls back the old insulation where the leaks hide and seals around the can lights, pipes, wires, the hatch and the flue. The vents meant to be open stay open, so your soffit, ridge and gable vents and any combustion air duct keep doing their job while we seal around them.

Air sealing usually comes right before more insulation, because new insulation laid over open gaps just fights a draft. For most attics, sealing the gaps and topping up loose fill is the better buy, but if your ductwork runs through the attic, closed-cell foam insulation, a dense foam that blocks air and moisture while it insulates, costs more and usually earns it. Downstairs, the leaks along the top of the foundation walls get handled as part of basement insulation, so cold floors get fixed from below too.

Who issues the permit depends on where your address falls. Inside the city, the Construction Division issues building permits where they apply and follows the work through to the end, and outside any city limits the Montgomery County Building and Codes Department handles it. Whether your job needs one comes down to what that office wants, so before we start we find out which office covers your address and what it asks for. When our part of the job needs a permit we take care of it, and if part of the work belongs to another trade, like an electrician for live knob and tube wiring, we tell you so.

Older houses around here sometimes still have vermiculite in the attic, the gray-brown pebbly kind, and it may contain asbestos, so it gets tested before anyone seals or insulates over it. The federal guide on attic sealing says to get professional advice and contact your state health department, which for a Clarksville home is the Tennessee Department of Health. We run the same attic check on jobs in Oak Grove, KY and Pleasant View, and across the cities around us on both sides of the state line.