Air sealing services in Murrieta CA - fewer drafts and rooms that hold their temperature

Most people call me because one room never feels right, the room over the garage bakes all summer, or fine gray dust keeps showing up on the sills under the attic. What moves the price and the schedule is how many openings are up there and how hard they are to reach, what shape the old insulation is in, and whether something has to be fixed before we can seal. You get your own figure in the written estimate after I've been up in your attic and seen it for myself.

If you've got drafty rooms, uneven temperatures or dust drifting down, I'll tell you honestly whether sealing is the right fix, and that starts with what has to be fixed first. I look for wet insulation from a roof leak, moldy or rotted framing, a kitchen, bath or dryer vent blowing moist air into the attic, and old knob and tube wiring, because sealing over any of those just locks the problem in, and if I find gray, flaky vermiculite it stays untouched until an approved lab tests it, since it may contain asbestos. With gas appliances in the house, we plan a draft check before and after the work, because a tighter house can sometimes pull exhaust back inside from an appliance that vents on its own. Then we seal the openings in the attic floor with sealant, one-part spray foam or rigid blocking, whatever each gap needs, and we leave the soffit, ridge and gable vents and any combustion air ducts open, since those are there to move air on purpose.

If ductwork runs through your attic, closed-cell foam insulation, a dense foam that blocks moisture, seals and insulates in one pass and is worth its higher cost, but for most other attics sealing the gaps and topping up loose fill does the job for less. Houses with a lower level have the same leaks around pipes and the rim, and we close those before any basement insulation goes in, for the same reason.

The first thing Murrieta owners ask is whether a sealing job needs a permit. The city's Building and Safety Division handles plan review and inspections, and whether yours needs a permit depends on the work and the address, so if it isn't clear we check with that office before we start, and if one is needed we take care of the application and line up the inspections. Depending on the work, California may also require HERS testing, and a properly permitted job is what triggers it when it's needed, which is why I'd rather settle the permit question with you up front than after the fact.

A lot of the attics I go up in around here have the ducts running right through them, so a leaky ceiling and leaky duct connections add up fast in summer. We're based in Murrieta and see the same layout on jobs in Temecula and Menifee, and we handle it the same way, ceiling gaps first and then a hard look at the ducts.