Declaring Thin Insulation Batts - Defective

Unfaced R15 insulation recommended by my professional supplier as most cost-effective is:

Owens Corning R15 23x93 "Unfaced" Batts 103.98 sf per bag  See that despite forcing a Google search result of unfaced batts, only big-box store offerings show, mainly with kraft facing. A push of kraft facing upon consumers, is adverse. I can buy unfaced batts at Home Depot as a special order, minimum eight bags on a pallet, store arrival in 7 to 10 days, bag price $73.82.

At my professional supplier, I bought a 4-bag pod, at $77.97 per bag, ahead of a declared 9% price increase on 5/1/2018. Imminently then, the price to a professional installer of OC R15 UNF, is 1.09*$77.97/104 sf =  $817.34 per 1000 sq ft.

I brought the four bags of OC R15 UNF to my job site, a detached garage of a new home.
Determined to be trusting, I pushed all four bags up this very excellent Fakro LWP 22x54  newly-installed attic ladder. A 20.5" clearance is tight for the large bags, but there is nothing to snag a bag, with intelligent springs-on-door durable ladder hardware.

I have reinforced the 10' 2x4 roof truss bottom elements of a 20' wide two-car garage, by stitching on 6" rips of 5/8" or 1/2" CDX plywood, then capped by stitched-on new 2x4s. Apply American Wood Council Span Calculator to judge that 2x4 spans longer than 5' 9" can't otherwise bear storage loads. Truss bottom elements strengthened to 2x8 can carry prescribed 40 psf design live loads with span up to 11' 11".

I want to insulate the ceiling to R15, which one expects to be 3.5" thick. In fact, thickness must be 3.5" to have that value. I am beyond disappointment, although I am not surprised. I have known that unfaced R15 fiberglass batts from Johns Manville and Owens Corning, if not from all manufacturers, are dependably thinner than promised. The same is true of R21 batts not measuring up to 5.5" thickness (2x6), and R30 Cathedral batts not measuring up to 7.25" (2x8). High Density R15, R21 and R30c are premium materials, more expensive by more than ratio of density, than ordinary batts.

Building Science Corporation: Thermal Metric Summary Report (June 2015 Update) , reports at page iii:   When walls are constructed with the same installed R-value in the stud space, and are air sealed both inside and outside (i.e. there is effectively zero air leakage through the assembly), they  exhibit essentially the same thermal performance regardless of the type of insulation material used.
This, to me, is definitive proof from elaborate experiments, that no material has magic, to have declared R-value, even if it does not fill the space. Conversely this is credited by makers of loose-fill insulation, that uniform added and sustained fluff, makes added insulation from thin air. If makers of insulation, both as batts and as loose-fill, would defend the magic in thin batts, they can not have it both ways.

Rejecting magic then, I pulled up the placed batts, some hacked around lighting junction boxes, and returned them with bags not opened, to be credited back to me, and to be returned to the manufacturer, as defective, not to be passed on to a gullible other buyer. I am probably the first buyer to do this, and I hope I will not be the last. I imagine though that my distributor will not follow my instructions, except for the opened bag. I am compelled then, to be a constructive bother, in other ways. There will be first, this blog post that is within my control.

I have an associated action in progress at Insulation Institute Blog of NAIMA, North American Insulation Manufacturers Association . I perhaps abuse a post of April 5, 2018, in posted replies, accusing product design and quality as not-mentioned elements of achieving RESNET Grade 1 standing. Other readers in the few regions where training is offered, only care about the free instruction for their workers.
Free Grade I Training Coming to Four States 
I think I do not need to experience the training, to know its content. In service to RESNET, Insulation Institute has published a handout checklist guide: GRADE I INSULATION INSTALLATION . Nothing in the checklist tests product quality in the matter of reliably filling the space promised. RESNET Grade 1 is not defined in the Checklist. RESNET Grade 1 is not defined anywhere at the RESNET web site . RESNET is in the business of a Home Energy Rating System, HERS.

NAIMA then, steps in to do the quality description in words and illustration focused entirely on RESNET, despite a confusion of rival quality rating-by-number schemes. I think this is the most-complete expression of NAIMA teaching:

INSULATION: A GUIDE TO PROPER INSTALLATION , by Advanced Energy , 24 page PDF

Advanced Energy is a non-profit energy consulting group in North Carolina. Advanced Energy separately publishes its' advice as:
prepplusinsulation.pdf, SUCCESS WITH HOME ENERGY UPGRADES What every contractor needs to know. 

NAIMA publications including those by Advanced Energy, take care to not conflict with a thin-batts problem  in manufacturing, that defies achieving claimed insulation value. Nothing may compel an installer to fully fill insulation space, to achieve best rating. Here is deliberately-foggy instruction, in words:

Summary of RESNET Grading Criteria:
Grade I – Minor Defects


Occasional very small gaps are allowed. Voids can’t extend from the interior to the exterior (i.e. the full width of a wall cavity). The product is installed according to manufacturer’s specification and cut to fit around electrical junction boxes and is split around wires and pipes. Compression or incomplete fill amounting to 2% or less, if the empty spaces are less than 30% of the intended fill thickness, are acceptable for Grade I.

If a batt fills the insulation space from side to side and is on-the-bag called the correct R-value, this is good enough for Grade I.

(from homedepot.com)

Know that the installer has carefully avoided pushing batts to contact with the exterior sheathing, to then unavoidably, very difficult of retraction, lack Ithe appearance of a full fill.

I think the NAIMA/RESNET Grade I definition in words, allows under-fill on thickness by up to 30%. Maybe Grade I, not Grade 1, is abbreviation of Grade Incomplete. Grade II is really-incomplete.







The full-appearance-only is quite difficult with R13 batts in 2x4 framing, where batts are never more than 3" thick. Watch the technique, in this NAIMA training video .

Consequences of thin batts are especially awful, where batts are fully out of contact with exterior sheathing, then not stilling the convection of air where temperature gradients are most steep. Find proof of this consequence in  training videos produced by Owens Corning, one showing installation techniques good and bad, and another reviewing installation details alongside infrared scans upon covering drywall.

Part 1, Installations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpkXxHRp8U0 

Part 2, Include Infrared Scans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXr5E3gb0P0 

These are R13 kraft-faced batts about 3" thick yet bag-labeled as code-compliant in 2x4 framing.The center joist cavity in the photo above purports to have a thin batt. It is "thinner" than other batts only because it is "compressed," gently pushed into good contact with exterior sheathing, then with kraft facing nominally 1/2" out from the drywall.

Here are the filled cavities including that on the right where there are voids outboard, challenged by parting and sloppy fit around a badly-foamed outlet from some long-ago other demonstration and around romex wires.

The "thin" batt has warmest drywall surface temperature. Carelessly placed batts left and right, especially that at left under a window, have lots of cold green and blue infrared indication. The outlet badly bleeds heat despite the foam, where evidently the foam has no penetration behind the outlet wall box. Acceptable insulation has generally-pink or red infrared indication on interior drywall, governed much by indoor and outdoor air temperatures. None of these three cavities is filled to Grade 1. Actual insulation value can only be known with full fill.

https://slideplayer.com/1689063/7/images/3/Infrared+Radiation+Spectrum.jpg
(An ice cube in a glass of hot water, I imagine.)

Know that the consensus quality labeling attributed to RESNET is in Arabic , not Roman numerals.

Should I be concerned that I am threatening to fiberglass insulation manufacturers and their lobbyists, NAIMA? If so, this is not the first instance published. At this thought, I have added Label: Thin Insulation Batts in this blog. Find associated writing at that Label, and at Label: Building Codes . I have been engaged in this for at least ten years, and addressed incomplete insulation fill of walls in a proposal for the 2018 revision of the International Energy Conservation Code.

My so-far-best summary of the 2018 building codes quest is in this post:
Math Assessment Of Poorly-Placed Insulation . Copied from that post is this statement of the proposal to deal with thin batts:

My proposal 11881 offered:
R402.2.1 Over-fill of insulation. Wherever possible, insulation shall be confined on all six sides. Insulation fill shall be complete and without voids that could allow air bypass of the insulation. Overfill of insulation shall be required to achieve complete insulation fill. In addition to installation methods that prevent voids within the insulation, the methods shall prevent the presence of air spaces between a barrier film such as the kraft facing of a batt or the containment mesh for blown cellulose, and hard wall coverings such as drywall.

I was an inexperienced individual, investing about $5,000 in preparation and attendance at hearings in the Louisville, KY Convention Center. I stood up for ten proposals and in each, in less than five minutes, accepted unanimous disapproval. Things move so fast, that each Judge surely has somehow noted his vote in advance, I accuse, with small regard for technical merit. If there is weight in standing up to defend or oppose, it is with those honored for repeat engagement, the lobbyists. My sure opponent each time was the National Association Of Home Builders, NAHB . NAHB guards the short-term interests of major home builders, to pocket as much as possible in each home sale, not much caring about interests of home buyers. For the Overfill of insulation proposal, the overwhelming single opponent, was NAIMA.

I have remained engaged with NAIMA, to no effect. I have been willing to try again in Louisville, but know it will be futile if NAIMA has not seen that the proposal is in fact good for its represented manufacturers. How could it be harmful to manufacturers if better code allows them to sell more insulation, I figured. Where in this conversation I state my observation that placement technique for photos and instructional videos, thin batts are delicately placed proud of joist front faces, for appearance of fullness, I am threatened: I must not question the honor and good intentions of NAIMA. Else, I will be shut out of conversation. I have been in defiance of this threat for more than a year, still thinking I might have NAIMA as an ally in Louisville. This post is perhaps the ending of that hope.

Get on then to what I have done on a job, after returning Owens Corning batts R15 unfaced, as defective.

Here is Rockwool R15 in nominal 22 1/2" space. No fussing needed to have uniform 3 1/2" thickness.

There is no buckling in accommodating 5/8" reduction of available space where I have used plywood webbing in growing the truss bottom elements to load-bearing 7" thickness. In a five-star review at the Rockwool web site, I credit edge compression without buckling,  to material friability . Crushing without buckling is virtue, but in trade, the batts are subject to falling apart when carried. The densely-packed insulation bags could not be pushed through 24" oc framing reduced to 20.5" clearance in the attic ladder frame. I carried insulation up one batt at a time, with occasional fragmenting in my grasp.

I am quite happy with 3 1/2" fill of R15 Rockwool batts (always unfaced). The honest-value Rockwool batts cost less too. Unit cost is $39/60.1*1000 = $649 per 1000 sf. Compare to an unsupportable, price-fixed $817 per 1000 sf cost of Owens Corning R15 unfaced fiberglass batts (see above).

Addition to this post will detail layup of batt insulation in layers, rather than thinking batts are readily parted to sandwich wall plumbing and wiring. Knowing that underfill shall not be allowed, unfaced batts about R11 shall be readily available, for sandwiching, and for fill-in at any low spot at an internal or outer layer. Layering/ fill-in batts must be visibly on offer for novice installers at big box stores too. Where fill-in might slow a pro, batts thinner than promised might remain unacceptable.

I will have may examples of layering with Rockwool batts. Here 2x10@16" framing is extended to 2x14. All wiring is laid atop the 2x10s, and is revealed by lifting plywood and top-layer R15. A trampled 12" depth of loose-fill fiberglass, with many voids and bare spots, was effectively not better than R10. Loose-fill has been redistributed to 4" depth now under R23 Rockwool. The serviceable new total of insulation is nearly R49.

Unhappily, I have buried can lights, with much effort in the placement of Rockwool batts. I have several thicknesses of Rockwool AFB batts useful in this, especially 1 1/2" thickness.At my professional insulation supplier, IDI, I may choose between Rockwool, and Owens Corning Thermafiber. I stick with Rockwool because there are fewer thickness choices with Thermafiber.

We Don't Need Home Energy Auditors

Bad news: A broken feather in Mayor Hales' cap:
Find City Council action at the link. 

Press Release: Home Energy Score Policy Adopted by Portland City Council  
Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016

Thanks to Lore Wintergreen, I can report the following:
The 12/14/2016 City Council action is subject to amendment upon public comments submitted before August 24, 2017. Send by email to:

 kyle.diesner@portlandoregon.gov using subject line: “Home Energy Score comments” or similar, or by mail to: Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Home Energy Score comments, 1900 SW 4th Avenue, Suite 7100, Portland, OR 97201. Comments received after 6:00 p.m. on August 24 will not be considered part of the record.

Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) will hold a Public Hearing on August 24, 2017 from 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. at 1900 SW 4th Ave., Room 7A (seventh floor), Portland, OR 97201. These rules clarify requirements for home sellers, home builders, and home energy assessors.

Where Kyle Diesner received my criticism of the intended Mayor Hales action, and we talked at length about my disappointment, I was not invited to the further commenting.



I have no use for programs that elevate do-nothing green jobs, in defiance of the public interest. These flow from the US Department of Energy as Home Performance with Energy Star, HPwES , and Home Energy Score, HES . These programs do create employment for those who would have  a green job, but need the respectability of "working" with clean hands, in a clean shirt, and that is not an accomplishment. The programs are very inefficient in accomplishing actual home improvements, and must not be justified by any other goal. A Maryland study for all of USA reported an average sponsor cost for each HPwES job with some completion, of $3100. Find reported benefit to cost ratio of less than 0.1. That is a utility benefit vs. cost. Where a home owner may have more to gain, it is with the further cost of labor and materials, similar to the sponsor cost. Worse of the sponsor cost, accused programs have not made significant progress toward our possible energy independence and USA responsibility in slowing global warming. energystar.gov reports only 313,633 project completions from 2002 to 2013, and a trend of declining success. This total does not imply much completion in any home, and does not acknowledge poor return where blow and go interferes "forever" with best possible achievements.

The situation is worse in Oregon and other states diverted in the wasteful HPwES implementation, by a bad investment in a rival energy scoring program, Energy Performance Score, EPS . I have opposed EPS from the beginning, where I found it only confused home owners to inaction. Expensive and useless EPS is still offered , even as its buyers surrender to HES as an only and better scoring system. I believe Energy Trust of Oregon has wasted about twenty million dollars developing and pushing its EPS invention, about a factor of five more than it has doled out to ratepayers as incentives in job-completion rebates, over the matching time interval. Oregon's Public Utility Commission has been derelict in ensuring Public Purpose Funds are spent wisely. There is no admission of this criminal waste, as Energy Trust pushes its crew of HPwES/ raters to trick the people of Portland, Oregon:

Here is recent local news: (Click this headline to read one Oregon newspaper account.)

Mandate to require Home Energy Score for houses on market goes to City Council

This news is of a Portland City Council hearing held November 23, 2016. I attended, and spoke in opposition of the proposal. My comments were as stated in advance to our Citizens Utility Board .

Here are those remarks:

At 10/28/2016

I don’t support scoring and the employment of auditors as superior or necessary, in the achievement of ever-better home energy efficiency. For every home, we need a completion list for savings opportunities. Each completion is subject to three-party review and in many cases is eligible for 100% up-front financing, mainly to be repaid when a home is sold. No home may be sold without the competitive measure of its completion list. We eliminate incentive to pass problems on to the next guy, unaware if possible.

At 11/21/2016

I will be at the crucial City Hall hearing, this Wednesday, November 23rd at 9:45 AM. I hope I will have informed supporters, starting on a path to a better plan to achieve our promised residential energy conservation. We must stop our horribly-wasteful dissipation of Public Purpose funds in Energy Trust’s failed program that serves fewer than 1500 homes per year, while few contractors remain in the unprofitable business, and many cheat, ruining public confidence.

The HES plan would only further erode public confidence in their weatherization investments. The return upon investment in audits is near-zero, where real action is fumbled, trust is further eroded, and public support in financing is not offered.

I wish I had taken photos as a reporter, but will make do with publicly shared images.

I had only been to City Hall once before, outside like this and with no police presence. I was one of a usual half dozen who cared enough, with signs appealing for the City to expand, not reduce, enrollment at my high shool, Benson Polytechnic .

This time it was a public hearing in the second-floor council chamber.

Ninth up of the general participants and in that near seat, I spoke for a polite minute.

I stated only what I had already shared in this matter, input as comments to our Citizens Utility Board.

I want better. Let each home owner have a checklist he maintains, and can amend with his own verified work, not obliged to entanglements with an interests-conflicted auditor. Materials and supervised contracted work will be fully paid-for in up-front loans for all, mainly repaid in new beneficial mortgage, when a house is sold. As a new or newly-engaged homeowner picks up the task of completions or simply recording past completions of critical home maintenance, third party verification will involve competing Diligence Reporters . These reporters with sometimes-new skill as technical writers, will generally be self-employed individuals working in the cloud, making understood reports of completion of checklist steps with photos and notes. It will be well-rewarded and satisfying work, of superior value to all. Disinterested inspectors of a jurisdictional authority, will happily supervise things that matter to the jurisdiction. Reports will have many uses that reward the responsible home owner, and will be gladly paid-for by the home owner. A reporter may have continuing relationships with specific builders, but payment and loyalty are from each home owner. This goes a long way to preventing worker/ employer fraud and wrongful credit not related to depth and quality of work done. We will throw a big monkey wrench in the action of Gresham's Law to devalue good. Homes without a properly interested owner-occupant, will have solutions, somehow.

I was among a small minority asking disapproval, mainly realtors, who do not place the new buyer interests first. Speaking with that realtor leadership, I reported that as an exceptional weatherization contractor, I rarely succeed in offered work to a newly-impoverished buyer of a too-expensive  home soon to be underwater, passed-along with badly-missing insulation, decrepit HVAC, plumbing, and wiring, with maybe a fence edged in-the-dirt for prettiness, soon to rot. OK, they didn't want to hear all of that, and some is added here.

The really big presence was of the Home Performance crew, in red shirts with white 5" round stickers saying RIGHT TO KNOW.

Right to know, what? Here is a 2015 sample Home Energy Report , a 1970 two-story home of 1800 sf in Arkansas, with numbers to be studied. Boost score from a 2 to a 6 at unstated cost, for actions mainly an indeterminate amount of attic insulation and tuneup of HVAC ducts. Auditor knowledge of your home will have evaporated next day. You can't read what is wrong now, and know detail of what needs fixing. Reports can't be verified and will have bias favoring the seller who grudgingly bought the report instead of obviously-needed repairs.

Want better than a crummy 6, and you did all that was suggested? No clues are imagined or offered. The report will not deal with matters that can be more important that energy waste, such as galvanized drain or water pipes that just burst in the similar house next door, the sure fire risk in an awful StabLoc circuit breaker panel, or the impending bad consequences of dried-out and fallen-off insulation of wires in overheated lighting junction boxes. We need very professional home inspection in direct service of the buyer. A little-trained auditor does not measure up up a certified home inspector, Energy auditors must not be elevated by ordnance with mandatory employment, superior to a home inspector. 

At end-November, 2016, another Sample Home Energy Report is posted, again a 1970 home in Arkansas, this time sprawling one level, 1500 sf. There is to-impress apparent use a of complex mix of construction and heat source details. Here is my math review of the report, filed at Google Docs. The example is very flawed. I have now done a similar math review of the 2015 example. These efforts are difficult, with a full day of my time invested. A report read only as a made-up score, has no value. The difficult review will always find report errors, with no means to challenge them.

Home Energy Score is a national continuance in the scandal of Home Performance with Energy Star, a program of the US Department Of Energy still teaching the lie that a blower door is the means and measure of residential weatherization, awfully failing to deliver served homes and delivering yet worse in involved honesty, after the lie. Read about the HES program here:

http://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/about-better-buildings-initiative  
and here:

http://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/Home%20Energy%20Score%20Overview%20Aug%202016.pdf.

HES offers hope of more rating business for involved HPwES contractors and their supporting organizations, without any promise of improved residential energy conservation. The goal is simply to produce numbers, and business.

At bottom of post here write on for the brave reader, about failings of rating systems. We find an ally in Martin Holladay, in a March 20, 2012 Green Building Advisor post titled Energy Modeling Isn't Very Accurate . Find a good summary of the origin and virtue of EPS. Find contradiction that simple EPS is called better than complex HES, for older existing homes. National Renewable Energy Lab found otherwise in a 2015 report, Assessment of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Home Energy Scoring Tool . 

I don't think we can know what to believe, except that as Martin Holladay advises, quoting modeling creator and critic Michael Blasnik, Experienced energy retrofit workers rarely rely on models. “When we make retrofit decisions, other factors like experience are more important than modeling,” said Blasnik. “Even if you need modeling to make design decisions, you don’t have to model every house. Model something well just once, and then apply the lesson to lots of buildings. If a house isn’t unique, modeling is a waste of time.”

I have forwarded this post to members of Portland's City Council:

Message

I oppose this action, as I presented in the 11/23 hearing, and as summarized in this post at my blog.

We need up-front financing for all crucial home improvements, that is best accomplished by a present home owner; with no incentive then to pass problems, unawares if possible, to a next home owner. Audits have nothing to do in this. 100% honesty in completions at fairest cost, is attainable. We have so much work to do in USA, to be better global citizens. We all will soon see the sobering energy poverty that is common in Europe, and will wish for energy independence, for our individual welfare. Energy independence must be distributed equally. Know there is great evil where public investment mainly promotes the independence of the already-affluent. Energy independence at modest cost and a massive commitment, offers affluence for all.

The failure of high-overhead-cost sponsor programs in HPwES and the various rating schemes, is dwarfed by failure of another program invented in Portland, Oregon. Read this of program Clean Energy Works Oregon, now a business named Enhabit :

aceee.org/files/proceedings/2016/data/papers/7_319.pdf

But the high cost associated with this high-level of service has proved to be a non-sustainable business model. The organization also faced a significant decline in its sales from $7.6 million in 2012 to $3.1 million in 2013, which led to cuts in the workforce and a shift in the business model. During the past year, the program has changed its name to Enhabit and its focus to “home renewal” beyond the traditional home performance upgrades to include seismic upgrades, radon reduction systems, and solar energy installations (Portland Business Journal 2015). In addition, up to 49 percent of financing can also be used for non energy measures, creating an avenue for contractors to fund non-energy related improvements.

I estimate that program costs of inefficient and unsuccessful Enhabit, are more than double the awful cost of HPwES, mentioned above. This is a sad end of an up-front financing vision, which we still need, in Oregon's legislature, offered by State Representative Jules Bailey, bill HB 2626 of 2009. We must not fail to learn lessons in this, as we seek a sustainable, low-program-cost, weatherization program, in rejection of Energy Trust's current programs. We must not let Energy Trust and poor-partner Enhabit wander on, playing games with rating schemes, serving fewer than 1500 households each year, with expenditure from residential contribution to our Public Purpose Fund, of about $100 million. I see that as overhead of $67,000 per home served.



At year-end 2016, add to this effort that failed to deter adoption of this 
City Of Portland Measure . 
Please read this, and see the blatant attempt to prolong waste in Energy Performance Score! This isn't about supporting a national HES experiment. Home Buyers will find further mayhem in a confusion of meaningless numbers for their unimproved homes.

Add here my appeals to the City, as Google Docs:
Proof of Conflicts of Interest 
Direct accusation against the most-serious conflict of interest 
I am very disappointed my region, and the nation, do not act now to mobilize weatherization of our homes in a way that will work, in up-front financing for all. 

A Mission At 2015 International Builders Show

I assisted in the Fakro booth at 2015 International Builders Show in Las Vegas, with a complementary message for their presentation of attic ladders. That message is: Do provide safe and efficient access to your attic. Then, please consider enabled improvements of your attic.

The Fakro display included their excellent skylights, one working ladder, and a large screen showing attic ladder and skylight installation videos. The ladder is steel scissors type, Model LST 22x31 .

To some visitors, I admitted my preference for wood ladders.
















I had a collection of photos to share, upon business cards, and on iPhone and tablet displays. No one cared to see my photos. Yet, I did engage with very many people, hoping they would remember me and my message, via taken business cards.















Here is a sampling of the shared photos and captions

Lighted safe access leads to remarkable results like these:

Very large savings are achievable in complex but inexpensive attic floor sealing. You can't do this without an in-attic vacuum and chop saw.

I have much to contribute toward better HVAC ducts , enabled by good attic and crawl space access.

Leading-edge adoption of residential LED lighting  is enabled with good access. These beautiful and bright Nicor DLS LEDs necessarily replaced a half-dead T12 fluorescent fixture/ bug collector. More commonly, the large savings and better satisfaction are in elimination of awful can lights.




The "starry sky " in this closet was carried throughout the house, replacing all can lights with Nicor DLS LEDs.

In the above photo and in numerous demonstrations, see application of my flexible grout to dress the edges of the ceiling cut-through, air tight about the frame. The trimless installation minimizes visibility of the closed door.

I practice innovation with attic ladders , for service not achievable with out-of-the-box construction. Would you buy a bicycle without any options to better serve your needs? The challenges and opportunities are similar.

The drawing shows a ladder easily deploying between 48" confining walls.

 A 2015 IBS visitor asked whether a drop-down ladder could serve with 14 ft floor to ceiling distance, and I responded that I have served FC of eleven ft (130.5"), despite manufacturer-claimed limits. I have imagined ladders that reach easily, more than twelve ft , comfortably in reach even for a short person. 14 ft might be difficult. 

Some possibilities involve manufacturer offerings to, and requirements of, professional installers, that may not be offered to a casual consumer. Such offerings do not yet exist.




All of these achievements, in Portland, Oregon, should be possible anywhere, with professional networking that I seek to establish through means including IBS presence.