Hi everybody,
I have a house I have lived in a little over 10 years. It was built in 1964. Normal construction for Texas, single story house around 2400 sq ft. It has around 8" of blown in cellulose which has apparently compacted down from whatever the previously owners originally blew in. There are two of the gable style vents on the ends of the house (triangular at the peak of the roof), and two "mushroom" non-powered rotating vents on top along the ridge.
I have noticed that my AC is struggling. It's in good shape, good on freon, and not an old unit. (installed 4 years ago). What I did notice is that the temp of air coming out of the vents changes substantially the longer the vent run in the attic is. Which makes me think my duct work is getting too hot and heating up the air in it. I am looking at options and trying to get ideas on how much it would cost and how DIY friendly the various options are.
a) Blow in more insulation - An obvious choice, but I don't know if this is something I could do myself. I'm also just now starting to look at costs on it.
b) Add soffit vents. There are no soffit vents on the house and plenty of overhang on which I could install them. This looks like the easiest option, possibly the cheapest, I am just not sure how much of a difference it will make.
c) Wrap the ducts. They are insulated, but I have seen where you can get a product that looks like foil covered bubble wrap and wrap them for better efficiency. Anybody here have any personal experience with this? It looks pretty inexpensive and like something I could knock out assuming I can stand the heat up in the attic long enough (it's brutal up there with the daytime temps hitting 100 in Texas already this year.)
d) Staple in a radiant barrier. This looks like something I could do, and I found a company called AtticFoil (http://www.atticfoil.com) that sells what looks like the right stuff and they are only around 20 minutes from my house so I could pick it up at their warehouse. Again, probably something I would have to do over time as there's only so long I can hang up in the oven of an attic I have right now.
e) Upgrade my mushroom vents to solar powered so they actively pull air through. Looks pretty easy, and I admit I just saw these while getting things at Sam's today so they're just the newest idea in my head.
I am not sure if one of these is the right answer for me, or if a combination would do the trick. I am price conscious (just finished redoing my wife's whole bathroom), but have what I consider a decent level of DIY skills. What do you experts and other semi-experts think?
I have a house I have lived in a little over 10 years. It was built in 1964. Normal construction for Texas, single story house around 2400 sq ft. It has around 8" of blown in cellulose which has apparently compacted down from whatever the previously owners originally blew in. There are two of the gable style vents on the ends of the house (triangular at the peak of the roof), and two "mushroom" non-powered rotating vents on top along the ridge.
I have noticed that my AC is struggling. It's in good shape, good on freon, and not an old unit. (installed 4 years ago). What I did notice is that the temp of air coming out of the vents changes substantially the longer the vent run in the attic is. Which makes me think my duct work is getting too hot and heating up the air in it. I am looking at options and trying to get ideas on how much it would cost and how DIY friendly the various options are.
a) Blow in more insulation - An obvious choice, but I don't know if this is something I could do myself. I'm also just now starting to look at costs on it.
b) Add soffit vents. There are no soffit vents on the house and plenty of overhang on which I could install them. This looks like the easiest option, possibly the cheapest, I am just not sure how much of a difference it will make.
c) Wrap the ducts. They are insulated, but I have seen where you can get a product that looks like foil covered bubble wrap and wrap them for better efficiency. Anybody here have any personal experience with this? It looks pretty inexpensive and like something I could knock out assuming I can stand the heat up in the attic long enough (it's brutal up there with the daytime temps hitting 100 in Texas already this year.)
d) Staple in a radiant barrier. This looks like something I could do, and I found a company called AtticFoil (http://www.atticfoil.com) that sells what looks like the right stuff and they are only around 20 minutes from my house so I could pick it up at their warehouse. Again, probably something I would have to do over time as there's only so long I can hang up in the oven of an attic I have right now.
e) Upgrade my mushroom vents to solar powered so they actively pull air through. Looks pretty easy, and I admit I just saw these while getting things at Sam's today so they're just the newest idea in my head.
I am not sure if one of these is the right answer for me, or if a combination would do the trick. I am price conscious (just finished redoing my wife's whole bathroom), but have what I consider a decent level of DIY skills. What do you experts and other semi-experts think?