Finally sorted the attic and realized why the prep work costs so much

I did a similar overhaul last fall on my 1,100-square-foot ranch. I ended up paying around $3,800, so your $4,500 for a larger space seems right on the money. The air sealing is realy where the value is. I watched my guys use cans of Great Stuff Pro to seal around every light fixture and top plate. Before that, my master bedroom was always five degrees colder than the rest of the house, no matter what I set the thermostat to.

I actualy went with the Owens Corning ProPink L77 loose-fill instead of cellulose beacuse I was worried about the weight on my older plaster ceilings. Even though it cost a bit more than the basic stuff, the difference in my heating bill was immediate. I saw a 20% drop in my gas usage during the first winter month.

The rodent proofing is a smart move too. I had a squirrel problem in the soffits a few years back, and cleaning out that mess was a nightmare. Paying someone else to handle the decontamination and the wire mesh install is money well spent. Doing that work yourself in a cramped attic is a recipe for a miserable weekend.

I went a completly diferent route with my 1,400-square-foot attic last spring. Instead of the full removal, I decided to DIY a "top-off" using Owens Corning AttiCat fiberglass. Since my old insulation wasn't damaged by moisture or pests, my local energy auditor told me I'd be wasting money pulling it all out. I spent about $1,200 on the bags and the blower rental was free since I bought more than twenty bags at the big box store.

The air sealing was the most tedious part, but I just crawled around with a few cases of fire-rated foam and some flashing for the chimney. It took me a full weekend of sweating in a Tyvek suit, but the results were immediate. I went from an R-19 up to an R-60. While $4,500 sounds fair for a profesional crew to handle the nasty cleanup and rodent proofing, I found that for a clean attic, you can get 90% of the benefit for a fraction of the cost if you're willing to lose a Saturday. If you don't have a rodent problem, the full extraction feels like overkill to me.

Seen a lot of guys lately thinking they can just blow more over the top and call it a day, but that's a mistake I stopped making back in the 80s. You got a fair shake at $4,500. Back then, we used to crawl in with bags of vermiculite before we knew any better, and we never even thought about air sealing. To get that old fiberglass out and actually plug the bypasses around the chimney and top plates is the real work. If you didn't pull that old stuff, you'd never find the hidden gaps or the mess the critters left behind. Cellulose is heavy, but it beats the pants off the old rockwool for stopping drafts.