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psadler

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I hope this is not too long, but this is my first post here and wanted to give some background. My home is an Orange County, Souther California 1950s, raised foundation, stucco, hip roof, two bed, one bath, 900 sq ft. For cooling I temporarily install a window air conditioner in the summer. The floor furnace does not work. The disintegrating burner can’t hold a flame, so we use oil filled space heaters. Not the best solution but it works for now. Summers can be very hot for a few weeks and winters are generally mild, rarely freezing. Our preference is to install radiant floor heating at some point in the future, and further develop passive cooling solutions.

But first on our list is insulating the attic. The are a few soffits at the eaves, small gables at either end of the attic and a turbin fan at the center of the roof. We would like to remove the old batting and clean out the attic prior to new insulation. Solar gain from the roof is a concern.

My current thinking is to install a foil radiant barrier on the attic ceiling and two layers of fiberglass batting on the attic floor. But then I read all the pros and cons of foil radiant barriers, versus the wonders of closed cell foam and it all gets blurry. What is the preferred plan for insulating this particular attic?
 
Welcome and good morning from the truly left coast.

I have a couple of questions; What type of electrical wiring do you have in the attic, knob and tube or romex?

Do you still have wood double-hung windows?

How's you landscaping?
 
Welcome to the site
You didn't say what the roof was. I am not a fan of insullating the roof sheeting if that is what you ment with the foam. Or the tin foil.
I want the attic to absorb the summerheat from the roofing and then I want good airflow above the insulation to cool the attic, that will help the roofing last longer.
You need soffet vents and vent channels on the inside bottom to have a good draft from the soffets to the peak.
Attic accesses are framed now so the sides of the hole are 15 inches high. If you are cleaning right out and you don't have vapour barrier I would think about adding that under the insulation.
After all that I think you could have uinsulation blown in for almost the same as buying batts.
 
Electrics are romex throughout. All windows have been replaced with dual glazed panes. The landscaping is drought tolerant, no lawn.

The roof is asphalt shingle, 20 years old still in good shape. I can see adding an attic access insulation cover, that would be an improvement.
 
Electrics are romex throughout. All windows have been replaced with dual glazed panes. The landscaping is drought tolerant, no lawn.

The roof is asphalt shingle, 20 years old still in good shape. I can see adding an attic access insulation cover, that would be an improvement.

A stucco bungalow and the walls are probably not insulated, so there is a lot of heat gain re-radiated, and there are reflective clear coats that mitigate that, somewhat.

The compacted blown in insulation can be left in place and a blanket of R-13, either unfaced or encapsulated, laid in the 2X6 joist bays to fill them. Then a layer of R-30 unfaced laid perpendicular to the joists.

Because of the age of the dwelling, the attic vents are not blocked off, so be careful when placing the R-13 not to obstruct them.

Install 2 mechanical turbine vents or GANAHL Lumber sells a solar powered attic vent.

Regarding your floor furnace.

If parts are not available there are replacement models for both configurations, or a wall model, and the cost of installation as well as the operation will be minuscule compared to electric floor heat.

Adding floor insulation will add comfort and should you decide to accomplish this, install R-19 Kraft faced with the Kraft facing up against the floor.

There are stays sold to hold the insulation in place.
 

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