Mandatory Attic Access Walkways

I submitted the following among proposals for 2018 revision of the International Energy Conservation Code:

Proposal submitted 1/4/2016:

R402.2.4 Access hatches and doors. Hinged doors and lift portals from conditioned spaces to unconditioned spaces (e.g. attics, unconditioned basements and crawl spaces) shall be insulated to the Energy Star standards of exterior opaque swinging doors, and shall be air sealed with well-fitting gaskets. The portal frame shall be sealed air tight in its rough opening. (The standard says: U-Factor ≤ 0.17)

The entry to an attic space at a portal shall have a surround of an ample raised floor that does not diminish insulation value. Flooring shall protect insulation against trampling while giving safe passage, to all attic electrical service points including fans, lights and junction boxes. Junction boxes not accessible from heated space shall be raised above insulation and flooring levels, or where this has failed, shall be flagged as a decked service point. Accessible service points shall include static vents that require periodic cleaning. Where a service point is buried in insulation, insulation over the service point shall be in batt form and tolerant of displacement for accessing the service point.

Existing code of 2015 says:

R402.2.4 Access hatches and doors. Access doors from conditioned spaces to unconditioned spaces such as attics and crawl spaces shall be weatherstripped and insulated to a level equivalent to the insulation on the surrounding surfaces. Access shall be provided to all equipment that prevents damaging or compressing the insulation. A wood- framed or equivalent baffle or retainer is required to be provided when loose-fill insulation is installed, the purpose of which is to prevent the loose-fill insulation from spilling into the living space when the attic access is opened, and to provide a permanent means of maintaining the installed R-value of the loose-fill insulation. 

All of this, and supporting statements offered to conference readers, is summarized in page Better Building Codes For Access Portals, at my web site r5portals.

I defended my proposal at 2016 Committee Action Hearings of the International Code Council in Louisville, KY, on April 18, 2016. There was expressed disdain in the matter of insulation value of a practical hatch, that I cited rival Energy Star standards, and no acknowledgement of my comprehensive math proof, that modest insulation is best; more on that elsewhere. Here, address the second-paragraph flooring requirement, forcefully opposed by one of the rotating intervenors of the National Association  of Home Builders. I took this opposition as formidable, in judges unanimously disapproving my proposal. Several participants privately encouraged me to persist in this and some of my other proposals, but no one came forward as an ally, to help if I would double my onerous personal investment, to offer and defend revised proposals, in Public Comment Hearings, Kansas City.  Those "final" hearings were concluded a week ago, and I was not there. To not feel defeated, I must believe that I am intent upon readiness to try again in the next of the three-year code cycles; then having time to enlist allies.

Here, add defense of the second paragraph of my proposal. I have a really-good example to share, of work done in Oregon City, Oregon June to July, 2016. A customer had discovered that large areas of the attics in his two-year-old home had no insulation. Hard to believe, but evidence showed in zonal early frost melt on the roof, unlike neighboring homes. 500 sq ft was bare, some seen in this view.  I suggest that a mandatory walkway here and an access cut further on, would have led to different and better construction choices. Impaired access is not good, for anyone.

In this photo see beginning of rapid and easy change. The scattered temporary plywood is important to my safety. I have cut down a horrible 16"  OSB skirt about the small access hole.

Move interfering HVAC ducts, and temporarily detach a bath fan duct. Separate HVAC flex ducts at a wye, and move them under the diagonal truss members.

Many trips are needed along a new smooth and level walkway, upon 32" bridges of truss elements. Cut batts to fit, in the garage, and carry pieces in a growing collection of empty insulation bags. A safe passageway should not be an afterthought. Many good things, not least worker safety, result from good access. Let access be lighted too. At least, let workers find power outlets to not rely on a flashlight.

In this access exercise, learn some lessons about HVAC duct installation, attic ventilation and a further thoughtless neglect of access. Preserving duct length is very important as ducts are disassembled and reset. Yet, I must sacrifice about 6" from each flex duct at this wye, because of remnant bad advice of PTCS trainers in the service area of Bonneville Power Administration. Goop, no longer required, should never be applied for liner attachment.

Goop applied blindly and in risk of clothing, missed this under-side zone of the main branch of the wye. There was duct leakage, out of sight. UL181 Nashua 557 tape easily achieves zero leakage here, and is the right choice for easiest damage-free separation of ducts for maintenance or replacement. Know that flexible ducts have claimed useful service life of not more than ten years . See example of Thermaflex ducts as fallen-apart rat paths after about 25 years .

I know that regardless of found condition, I must replace cardboard soffit vent baffles. They rarely survive more than thirty years and when used are with no manufacturer thought or guarantee of acceptable service life (sixty years!). Here I have more than conscience in play. Curl with detached flimsy staples is ugly. Looking down at vent bird block, see poor bird block design employed by most builders. Slot placement demands vent baffles 3 1/2" down from roof sheathing, a large sacrifice of potential insulation depth over exterior wall headers. This bird block is needed in every available roof joist bay, not in every fourth.

Lumber for proper soffit vent baffles is free, in good employment of job scrap. Use 25 cents of good deck screws, not nails. I assembled six baffles in thirty minutes. This is quicker than setting a $1 cardboard baffle, thus less expensive. Wood sleds are easily adapted for obstructions, then set much more securely.

Baffles just 32" tall are ample over R45 batts. I can push R30 top-layer batts tightly against a baffle, for fullest insulation value, and that is the controlling economy.

A hidden attic around this corner was uninsulated too. The triangular access is new. Opportunity was concealed behind redundant OSB sheathing.

While I am at this I will insulate over the garage too, to just R15. I can't bear to crawl there carrying insulation, through this jungle of beam and variable trusses.

Cut in a new access for the garage, "factory built" in my shop. Where truss bottom elements are 2x4, they must not carry loads unless strengthened as composite beams. Leave a couple of 9" rips of plywood that I needed for my safety, but not more flooring.

Here is the fully-dimensioned plan of my hatch, offered to anyone as noted here.

At June 18, 2021, I revisit this post upon reading the post of this date at Insulation Institute Blog: A Hot New Home and Missing Insulation. I see that this post should go further upon process of inspection, not just means of inspection. Process should be for information to the builder and ultimate home owner and not just a manager of building permits. Building permits delve in the short-term self-interest of a builder, to get a certificate of occupancy. They involve inspection requirements  often flouted. by disinterested and unmotivated municipal employees, who take an easy path where inspection is difficult or impossible.

Get better results where inspection is primarily in service of the self interest of the home occupants ever-after. Those citizens of the community  are the real employers of the inspectors. Let these employers then receive indelible proof of critical performance items in the form of pdf documents I call Diligence Reports. A diligence report is created by a professional technical writer rated for integrity and skill in taking photos and notes from the builder daily to generate each required Diligence Report. Report contents are driven by task checklists, and comply with simple national standards. The involvement of three parties in the satisfaction of checklists ensures honesty. 

A recent customer was fascinated with the notion of Diligence Reporting, and made this hat for me! 

I wondered when I would first find cause to share the humor.

My Best Truss Attic, 2012

At end-October, 2015, add to blog examples of truss attics, as found by Label: Truss Attic Insulation . It is time I included one completed in April, 2012, then and now considered my "best." It is important because the truss arrangement is very common. I had chances to improve, in each new effort with this truss arrangement. 

One improvement to "best" is in location of the access by dropdown ladder. It is safer to enter an attic beyond confines of a hallway that is on house centerline. The ladder is then less a hole to step into. Here the ladder drops into the kitchen. 

Functional detail in a ceiling, is beauty.

View in the attic, ladder stowed, seen where there is other access from the garage. A Calvert ladder door may be latched or unlatched from the attic, but a helper would be needed to manage folding steps.

A handle at the ladder door and four hand grips here best serve a right-handed person, carrying a burden by left hand. The structure handedness could be reversed.

















Preparation included raising the floor for 10" insulation depth, R38, by composite beam method. I must cope with found mineral wool insulation.

R38 insulation is thicker than the space under flooring, but air tightness of the compressing plywood flooring is such that decked areas do not have diminished R value.

A custom HVAC return header will be insulated and covered by decking, a much-reduced obstacle to access.

Two excellent Panasonic FV08VQ5 fans are ducted through-roof in solid steel piping. An adjacent wet wall was open to the attic and was frigid in Winter. The wall is now thoroughly air-sealed.

Before the improvement, the home owners fought mud wasps with traps needing regular maintenance. They will find the maintenance if still needed, much safer now. An attic is not a trash heap in which danger must be accepted. A truss attic is much better insulated with batts carefully,  thickly and tightly placed out to outside walls, than by blown loose-fill.

Please see an alternative and fuller presentation of details, in the supporting Picasa Web Album . An interested person will do better to view the full job photo album at Google Docs .

Many things evolve, and for the better in three years of my construction practice and in the availability of materials from creative suppliers. And, I find cause to comment on things that have not improved. Here are some observations three years down the road:

I have wanted to remark about the bath fan ducts photo above. The uninsulated but efficient solid bath fan ducts do work in balmy Portland, Oregon, where reasonably short. Some condensation might run from the left-most fan of the master bathroom in Winter cold, even if an insulating sleeve is pulled on. I would now ask a home owner to allow two roof penetrations, with much-shorter ducts. Know that I did do good here. The LH fan dumped to the attic. The RH bathroom had no fan. The house survived all of this with growing-up children. The house has sold, and I want new owners to be aware of my achievements and my reservations, via this blog post.

• Fuller albums remark about wasp traps hanging in view in the above photo. There are reasons home owners regularly navigate their attics, and they and their ceilings are at risk in darkness without flooring. Please appreciate many virtues in my examples of better attics with good access, fixed lights and safe flooring, beyond the durability of insulation, that must be installed to function undiminished, for at least sixty years .
• Good attic ladders by Calvert USA and Fakro are evolving rapidly despite their difficult availability and our tolerance of junk, in USA. Please check out what is now available.
• This job was a very good demonstration of my attic floor sealing methods employing GP Densarmor drywall and my flexible grout . This post is an important addition to results of blog search, Label: Attic Floor Sealing . The post is important where in territory of Bonneville Power Administration, and perhaps everywhere, floor sealing is rarely included in weatherization, a grave misunderstanding. Here a long bathrooms wet wall was frigid in Winter, well-connected to attic conditions through large wall header gaps. A frigid, condensing, bathroom wall leads to sure health and home maintenance problems.

See details of a very similar truss attic improvement in this 2019 job photo album:

Worthington Attics

More-extensive flooring and deeper insulation cope with deeper found loose-fill insulation.

Found condition after taking down a booby-trap barrier of batts over this entrance from the garage.

Improved condition 

Ahead at left find improved opportunity for wiring and other attic renovation supporting a planned kitchen remodel. See that top-layer Rockwool batts are part of the evolution of ever-better work.

With alternative access from the garage on a cold day in December, see a usual work condition with the new attic ladder stowed. See that much of the found loose fill was pushed to the attic periphery. Cardboard soffit vent baffles were replaced with plywood, enabling deeper insulation.

Daring To Collapse and Rebuild Crummy Loose-Fill Fiberglass Insulation

Where loose-fill insulation floods an attic floor, a worker is unable to fix lee voids under/ behind crossing lumber, wires and ducts. Most are unable or unwilling to be generous in any compensating general coverage. We must consider the consequences.

I believe loose-fill fiberglass insulation intended R19, is commonly R10 on average. Do the math.
Assumptions:
R2.2 per inch fiberglass. Target depth 9”.
R19 peak over 20%. R15 average except at voids. R2 over voids that cover some unknown fraction, F.

1/(R avg + 3) = F/5 + .2/22 + (.8-F)/18

I believe loose-fill fiberglass insulation intended R38, is commonly R15 on average. Do the math.
Assumptions:
R2.2 per inch fiberglass. Target depth 18”.
R38 peak over 20%. R30 average except at voids. R2 over voids that cover some unknown fraction, F.

1/(R avg + 3) = F/5 + .2/41 + (.8-F)/33

Here is one photo of the found "R19" insulation that inspires this post.

Here is a review of some of my actions that challenge policy in Portland, Oregon, whereby this attic is judged just fine. Leave it as is. In truth, few attics contain greater opportunities for saving with weatherization measures. Even including the cost of a wonderful attic ladder and surrounding decks, all cost of weatherizing this 1988 attic to higher standards of 2014, will be repaid in about ten years. 

Details of the storage provision are in a Picasa web album
Truss Attic, February, 2014 .

All details, including construction of R30 insulation on attic walls, are in a pdf album at Google Docs: Truss Attic February 2014 . Please know always to view pdf albums as downloads.

There is real value in 280 sf of added storage space, brightly lit, safely accessible. The inviting access is important, too, in doing the profitable weatherization.

I do all cutting in the attic, catching debris in a sheet which I shake frequently into a 55 gallon drum liner. 

Here observe all stages of insulating attic walls to R30, with crossed R15 unfaced batts. The outer covering is 3/8" OSB.

Enabled LED lighting is a big boost to happiness and quality of life. 

A "weatherization" contractor only interested in more blow and go void-ruined insulation, throws barriers that may be insurmountable, against best savings possibilities and quality of life improvement.




A weatherization sponsor who teaches and rewards dumb work even that including fraud, devalues good work. Here I criticize the weatherization funds-squanderor I know, Energy Trust Of Oregon . Energy Trust, at article 2.1 in its Specifications , is oblivious of voids concerns. Energy Trust knows better, but further and more disastrously, does not require any "attic floor sealing" before adding more insulation. They go further, declaring that sealing costs are not repaid with energy savings. Not worth the trouble! How stupid! How evil! It doesn't pay, they say, yet they still reward only the contractors who lie about value of blower door testing. Insulation voids and attic floor pits are never found with a blower door. Lee voids are created, always, by the blow and go practitioners of Clean Energy Works Oregon.


Google this topic: "voids under attic insulation" . My work is readily found.