Knee Wall Attic Access Door Insulation

Depending on your experience with construction insulation and especially attic insulation airflow a homemade cover box is unlikely to provide the same amount of benefit as an approved purpose built attic cover.

Knee wall attic access door insulation.

Access doors need to be detailed like exterior doors. These doors need to include thick insulation for example several layers of rigid foam glued to the back of the door a tight threshold good weatherstripping and a latch that pulls the door tightly shut. Superb thermo insulating parameters r value 5 2 along with high air tightness keep heat loss to a minimum. Another alternative for knee walls conditions is to remove and reinstall the batt insulation to qii standards.

If the door doesn t have these weather strip it to provide a tight seal and make sure the latch pulls tightly against the frame. Insulate the sloped ceiling. Many knee wall doors have built in weather stripping and insulation. You can buy knee wall doors that have built in insulation and weather stripping.

Rake walls it s easier to handle than plywood or thermo ply and still gives you an r 19 r121 assembly. How to seal knee wall doors. A knee wall attic door is infamous for being leaky and all too often left without insulation. As standard the door is provided with lining slats.

Then cover that same area with an r 8 fsk affixing it using cap nails. We prefer cellulose but we use fiberglass sometimes too. 1 3 8 thick foam filled door. An attic hatch also known as a scuttle hole is simply a panel in the ceiling that can be removed for access.

Despite both of these attic doors being easy to insulate many contractors don t do it. We reduced the air leakage nearly 50 on this house in shaker heights without insulating the walls. Pre hung on an exterior grade 1 1 4 x 4 9 16 door frame with q lon weather stripping. Knee wall doors provide access through the knee walls to the unconditioned parts of the attic.

R 10 rated 2 1 4 thick foam filled doors available. In tight attics or odd shaped wall conditions i e. Blown insulation in the knee wall and top attics. The attic tent is the ultimate attic access insulation cover ever invented attic stairs scuttle holes knee wall doors and full size doors its primary design is to stop air infiltration between the home and attic the most common medium for wasting costly residential energy during both hot and cold seasons.

The knee wall access doors may be installed in right or left opening versions.