Would you pay $1200 to have your attic insulated?

[Stella_luna]

Do you think it's worth it? It's a huge attic (about 1000 square feet) with about 4 inches of insulation. So, obviously, not much. We're in the Northeast, where it gets cold, and have oil heat, which is expensive! But it just seems like sooo much money, and who knows how much savings on heating we would see.

Any thoughts?

[mamaverdi]

Seems pretty reasonable. Does that include to have the old insulation removed? Is it boric acid insulation?

[TattooedMama]

Yes I would! Because my attic is supposed to be my workroom/sewing room and it is only useable about 5 months out of the year right now. I dream fondly of the day my attic has insulation. Also, I know here the energy company gives a rebate of several hundred dollars for doing insulation. Would that be an option for you at all? I'm not that familiar with heating oil.... we have natural gas.

[charmander]

Well, we just put insulation in our attic. We did it ourselves. I think we spent about $800 at Home Depot for the batts, and my DH did it in one day.It's approx 1200 sq ft. It seems that our house stays warmer once it heats up, but the proof will be in the amount of oil we use (we have an oil furnace) compared to previous years.

If you already have insulation, why are you thinking about putting in more? Are your exterior walls insulated? If not, I'd think about getting blown-in insulation there.

[insahmniak]

We have about 1000sq ft and the charge to bring it from R17 to R21 would be about $450. That's if someone else would do it. If we blow it in ourselves it's much less I think. This is blown-in cellulose. $1200 seems too much, unless I'm missing something here...

ETA, we have 7" in now. I can't imagine 4". Adding insulation up there seems like a good place to start to make your house more comfortable/efficient. Look into doing it yourself. And if you do it before the year's up you may get a tax break.

[***Heather***]

Honestly, if I heated with oil, I would do whatever it took to make my house as airtight/insulated as possible. Spending $1200 to insulate sounds like it would be worth it in the long run.

[MilkTrance]

Yes. Definitely.

We have no insulation in our roof and if we had $1200 we would get some!

We will undoubtedly save money on our electricity bill.

[philomom]

That seems quite fair to me.

[kama'aina mama]

I think there are programs that help you figure out how long it will take you to "pay off" your new insulation based on your energy savings. If I find one I'll let you know.

[LittlePeanut]

Sounds fair to me. Have you had more than one quote? Did you get referrences?

LP

[applejuice]

I am in CA and I had my attic re-insulated then I read in my old escrow papers that the old insulation job had a lifetime guarantee. I was screwed...! I paid $800.00.

[Thursday Girl]

no, but i wold make my dh crawl up in the attic and do it himself. I suppose if he wasn't handy (i wouldn't be married to him, haha) I'd pay to have it done though.

[twindaze]

We did it ourselves. Home Depot, or Lowes, or one of those places let you use the blower for free if you bought the insulation from them. We did it 11 years ago and it wasn't hard at all. Maybe we spent $200? I can't really recall. It did make a difference. When I checked my even billing recently it had only gone up $4 per month since we moved in, and that was 4 kids and 13 years ago!

[famousmockngbrd]

If you are going to do it, do it now before the tax law changes. You can get a tax credit for it if you do it before the end of the year. The law may be renewed but it might not be.

My advice - call around and get estimates for your area. What is fair in Chicago might be outrageous in Tucson.

[mrskennedy]

No but I'd pay $800 if I had it. Don't know why not $1200, except that that's more money than I've seen at one time in my life! :

[Sharlla]

I'd buy the supplies and do it ourselves.

[Essie]

Well... I am really lame about sq. footage but our attic is maybe about that and I just got a qoute of $1000. We are in Oregon and it seems to me that things cost more here (services) than they did in Ca where my parents live. So, I guess your est. is fair compared to the one I got but I never know if the prices here are jacked up or what! it seems it would be cheaper here than in Ca (like the other poster who gave a price of $800 for Ca) and that's where I get confused! it's much colder HERE than in CA! what's up with that?

The guy who gave the est. was very honest and said that our comfort level would go up and it was hard to give a dollar amount that we'd save but he said roughly about 5%.

To all of you who say to do the blow in kind ourselves... how do you know what to do?

I say if you have the $ go for it, it's got to help somewhat.

[SleeplessMommy]

We have DIY on three different houses, with fiberglass. Cost is $250-700. Payback is 1-4 years with DIY. With the current oil costs, you absolutely need to do this, and also get a setback thermostat.