Insulate Attic Stairs

Insulate attic stairs and make sure this area is comfortable inside and free from the effects of the wind and the elements outside. Attic stairs might be located either inside or outside the house, but either way it is extremely important to insulate them and make sure they are just as comfortable as the rest of the home. Planning a remodel like this on the upper floor sometimes requires converting or finishing the stairs; but sometimes it actually requires creating a staircase, because some of these areas can only be reached through a small access hole.

If all that unused area up there is going to eventually end up being a huge bonus room for the kids to play or for the TV to go, a lot of different things will need to happen to make the living area just right. If there is an existing staircase, handrails may need to be added, certainly drywall and paint and carpet will have to be put down, and in all likelihood it will be necessary to insulate attic stairs as well. A lot of heat transfer can occur here and it is a huge energy waster not to have this location covered, so remodelers usually plan to install attic insulation as they go through with the attic job.

Building Outside Attic Entries

The need to insulate attic stairs is even more prevalent when the design is put together in such a way that plans call for an outside entrance. This type of entrance usually requires a long set of stairs, often a covered set with a door at the bottom as well as one at the top. When this is the case, you always want to insulate attic stairs before finishing the walls and covering the treads and risers just for the sake of breaking down the wind outside and providing for a comfortable point of transition into the home. The cost of choosing to insulate this area is minimal as expressed in the overall price of the project. It is well worth doing because once the walls are built up and finished, it will be much harder to go back and do later.

When we insulate attic stairs, we are doing a better job of creating that transition point and even allowing for the upper entry door to remain open without the heating and cooling system for the unit working overtime to heat the entire world. Getting ideas on staircases can help people design them in an appropriate manner based on their specific situation. For example, sometimes split stairs work best and sometimes a single flight built up against the back or the side of the house makes more sense. And of course, there are also sets of stairs that drop down inside the house in various locations, sometimes even basically adding an additional flight to existing staircases. It is important to insulate attic stairs in these cases because the lower floor landing might otherwise constantly get air flowing in down or vice versa when the heat kicks on and off.

Finding Attic Remodelers

If you are trying to do something a bit more useful with the unfinished space upstairs, getting a remodeling company out to finish the area and create a new room for the kids or for some other use is a great idea. When the professionals do these jobs, they firsy make sure to insulate everywhere so that the new rooms created are just as efficient and comfortable as all the others. It is important in these cases, maybe more than people even realize, to insulate attic stairs along with the rest of the square footage. There are a number of reasons for this, but primarily what is at issue is home energy efficiency. Adding or finishing out a set of stairs like this is basically creating a huge hole from one floor to the next. It can't help but have an impact on heating and cooling.

Don't waste the hot air that rises up through there. Insulate attic stairs and you can capture it to make it warmer in the attic area. In many cases, registers up there don't have to be open that often in the winter because of this phenomenon. In the summer, doors can be closed at the bottom of the staircase. Find professionals to insulate and prep the area for remodeling. Look at photos of before and afters. Choose a company to insulate the attic in preparation for converting it.

Determine the best way to use that bonus area with help from professionals in your local region. Share any idea you might have and see what they are thinking as well. Use the free quote form to get cheap quotes to insulate attic stairs and finish the upper floor the right way.