Before & After Photos

This Manchester, CT customer reached out to Fogarty's Home Services for a Free Home Energy Evaluation to determine why her home was experiencing drafts and coldness. One of the issues we found was leaky & poorly insulated rim joists. The "rim joist" is the perimeter of the floor framing system along the exterior of the house. The joints and gaps between all the framing members allow for a lot of air leakage into the house. The rim joist is seldom insulated and never air sealed. Basement ceiling insulation, especially fiberglass batt insulation, doesn't stop the flow of cold air into the home. This explains why our customer had a drafty, cold house. To fix our customer's uncomfortable home, we installed two-part expanding spray foam on the rim joists and over sill plate to seal all air leaks from the outside and insulate the area. Fogarty's Home Services uses a Dr. Energy Saver spray foam with a high insulation value per inch of R7, and because it expands, it seals all cracks, gaps, and joints where air from the outside enters your home. Now our happy customer will feel the results, which include warmer floors, less drafts, more comfortable rooms, and lower energy bills.

This homeowner reached out to us hoping that we could evaluate his attic. He had a mold issue, and his insulation was insufficient. Since attics are vented, we should think of them thermally as outside in the winter. In summer because of the suns radiant heat, they are much worse than outside, reaching 130˚ on summer days. Clearly, we need to keep an absolute boundary between our living space and the attic so inside air doesn’t move to the attic in the heating season (convection), and heat doesn’t pass up through our ceilings in winter (conduction), and down from our ceilings in the hot summer (conduction, radiation). To reduce overall air leakage, the attic is the first priority because warm air rises to the top of the house and finds any and all holes to leak out into the cold vented attic and is lost. Holes, gaps and joints include between drywall and framing at the top of walls, around pipes, wires, electric boxes, fixtures, duct, penetrations, ceiling grilles and joints in framing. And the only reason cold air leaks in from the outside at the lower levels of the house, is that warm air leaked out of the top and created a suction at the bottom. 

We had the perfect solution for this customer. Adding insulation in an attic without sealing all air leaks first should never be done, because it is just burying air leaks and making them impossible to seal later - and insulation DOES NOT STOP air leaks. That’s why, in this solution, we first carefully air seal the many various points where air from the home leaks up into the attic and is lost. Our premium TruSoft™ cellulose insulation is blown to the optimum R-value (typically R60). TruSoft™ will not burn, get moldy, or attract pests. Blown insulation fills all gaps and odd shaped voids, and by filling over framing members, “thermal bridging” is avoided.

This home owner in East Longmeadow, MA called us to see if we could make his home warmer in the winter. When we got into his attic we noticed that not only was there little to no insulation, but there was also can lights. Can light can let up to 10 CFM's of air that you paid to heat your home escape into your attic. When you have multiple can light like this home does, it could be effecting the temperature in the house and your wallet! To fix this issue, we use our Tite-Shell can light covers. Because can lights get so hot you can use traditional insulation or it could burn. Instead our can light covers are made with rock wool. This is a material that is a by-product of the molten steel industry. IT has been burned up tp 2000+ degrees to make it practically fire proof. Once we get the shell to fix right we air seal around it. after doing all the can lights, this house is just one step closer to becoming more comfortable and energy efficient!

Team dense packed roof with TrueSoft Cellulose

These homeowners in East Longmeadow, MA had issues with drafts in their home. One of the sources of these drafts was a whole house fan. Before air conditioning was common in homes, whole house fans were installed in the floor of the attic to pull warm air inside the home out and allow for cooler air to come in through opened windows. With air conditioning, there is no longer a need for such a fan, which is now just another spot for the air the homeowner pays to heat and cool to leak into the attic and out through the vents to the  outside.

To seal the fan off, we use our David Lewis Whole House Fan Cover. The cover is made of our SilverGlo graphite infuse insulation board and sealed with expanding foam. The homeowners let us know that they may want to use the fan in the future, so we cut a removable lid out of the top piece of foam board which can easily be taken off whenever the fan is going to be used.

Thanks to Dr. Energy Saver by Eco Energy Solutions, this home is less drafty and the homeowners still have options available for cooling their home in the summer.