Knee Wall Attic Access Door Insulation

Blown insulation in the knee wall and top attics.

Knee wall attic access door insulation.

Superb thermo insulating parameters r value 5 2 along with high air tightness keep heat loss to a minimum. Despite both of these attic doors being easy to insulate many contractors don t do it. Knee wall doors provide access through the knee walls to the unconditioned parts of the attic. 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. A knee wall attic door is infamous for being leaky and all too often left without insulation. The knee wall access door dwk is intended to be built into l shaped walls. An attic hatch also known as a scuttle hole is simply a panel in the ceiling that can be removed for access.

As standard the door is provided with lining slats. R 10 rated 2 1 4 thick foam filled doors available. Added bonus the floor of this knee wall leaked too so there is a line of foam just above the floor joist. 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.

Access doors need to be detailed like exterior doors. Pre hung on an exterior grade 1 1 4 x 4 9 16 door frame with q lon weather stripping. Then cover that same area with an r 8 fsk affixing it using cap nails. 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.

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. 1 3 8 thick foam filled door. Another alternative for knee walls conditions is to remove and reinstall the batt insulation to qii standards. We reduced the air leakage nearly 50 on this house in shaker heights without insulating the walls.

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. Many knee wall doors have built in weather stripping and insulation. Energy star qualified r 5 rated knee wall door. In tight attics or odd shaped wall conditions i e.

Insulate the sloped ceiling.