Quote:
Originally Posted by ducati1974
If you've ever gone up in the attic of a hip roofed house in TV you'd be real skeptical about what kind of job they could possibly do. Pre-fab roof trusses of multiple configurations, flex duct snaking everywhere and penetrating the ceiling many times, inaccessible areas under the low parts of the roof...etc.
I've been up there to do some work and you can barely manipulate around never mind do some kind of a nice job installing foil. I'm a former HVAC installer and I'm real skeptical about what kind of job they can do not to mention the compacting of your insulation that must occur.
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My observations echo yours about the apparent inaccessibility (or at least difficulty accessing) of much of the attic space. However, about compacting the insulation, even if it occurs during installation, most installers will recommend blowing in additional insulation as part of the job after the foil is installed. That's why I think it's important to get real world observations/results before/after any investment like this that's intended to produce savings. Everything said by proponents makes logical sense - but the real question is whether or not it makes financial sense. If the simple pay-back-period is three years and I plan to own the home for 10 years, that makes for an easy decision. Similarly, if the simple pay-back-period is 20 years, it also makes for an easy decision. So far, from reviewing this and similar threads, it seems that most who have made the investment think it was worthwhile, but that's not backed up by hard evidence.