Drafty rooms or a hot upstairs usually means attic air is getting in. We find the gaps and seal them before any insulation goes back.
Attic air sealing in East Los Angeles means closing the cracks and openings between your attic and the rooms below, around wall tops, light fixtures, pipes and ducts, so air stops moving through them and the insulation on top can do its job.
Most people call because a room is drafty, the room over the garage won't cool down or the power bill keeps climbing, and they figure they need more attic insulation. Often the bigger problem is air coming up through gaps, and new insulation laid over those gaps just sits in a draft. The price and the schedule both turn on how many openings there are, how easy your attic is to move around in and what has to be fixed before we seal. At the estimate I look at the attic with you and write down what the job needs and what has to come first.
I look at your attic with you myself, so the person pricing the job is the one who knows the order it has to go in. A lead installer runs our crew on the job, and I look over the finished work with you at the end.
Before this business I spent years hauling junk out of garages and attics around here, and I kept finding insulation that was flattened, soaked or full of droppings. That's why I opened this business in 2017, and why we fix problems before we seal or insulate.
We're licensed and insured. In California, the C-2 Insulation and Acoustical Contractor class is the one that covers contractors who install insulation for temperature or sound control, so it's fair to ask any insulation contractor about their license before they go into your attic.
If your attic doesn't need sealing, I'll tell you, because I'd rather lose a job than sell one you don't need. When we do the work, we leave the house clean and tell you what we did, backed by our satisfaction guarantee. Call (213) 329-0372 to set up a visit.
We reply within one business day, and the estimate is free, done in person and comes with no pressure to book. I come out myself, look at the attic with you and write down what it needs and what has to come first. Send your address, what you're noticing and whether your furnace or water heater vents up a chimney, through the form or at (213) 329-0372.
For property in unincorporated LA County, building permits come from LA County Public Works, which runs a Building and Safety office in East Los Angeles. If your address falls under a city instead, another office may handle it, and whether a sealing job needs a permit is that office's call. So before anything else we check which office covers your address, and when a job calls for a permit, we take care of that step with them before work starts.
Many houses in and around East Los Angeles are older, and the attics we open often have thin, flattened insulation, old recessed lights and gaps around pipes that have been there for decades. Low attics with tight edges are common too, which is where coverage usually runs thin and the eave vents get buried, so we take our time there. We're based in East Los Angeles and do the same work across the cities around it, including Montebello and Monterey Park.
There's no set price, because it comes down to what's in your attic, and I won't guess before I've seen it. It goes up when old insulation has to be pulled back or hauled out, when recessed lights need covering or replacing, or when repairs have to come first, and it stays lower in an open attic where we can reach the gaps easily. At the estimate I write down what the job needs and what comes first, so you can see where the cost comes from.
Drafty rooms, big temperature differences from one room to the next, high heating or cooling bills and dust showing up in the rooms under the attic are the usual signs a house might be a good candidate. If you notice none of them and the attic looks sound, I'll tell you that too.
Wet insulation from a roof leak, moldy or rotted rafters or joists, and vents that blow moist air into the attic should be corrected by a professional before any sealing, according to ENERGY STAR. Little or no attic ventilation and old knob and tube wiring, which can be a fire hazard when insulation touches it, are on the same list. We put these at the top of your plan, because sealing over them only hides them.
It can be, once the gas appliances are checked first, because sealing the attic changes how air moves through the house. A Department of Energy guide says homes with a gas or oil furnace, water heater or boiler venting up a natural draft chimney need outside air for combustion, a backdrafting test to make sure exhaust goes up the flue and not into the house, and carbon monoxide detectors. The same guide calls replacing those units with sealed combustion or power-vented ones the best approach, so if yours are old, that's worth weighing in your plan.
Leave it alone until it's tested, because vermiculite, a light, flaky gray mineral fill, may contain asbestos. Your local health department can give you the name of an approved lab to test it. We don't disturb it or seal around it until that test comes back.
How long we're up there depends on how many openings there are, how tight the attic is and how much old insulation has to move first, so I give you the schedule at the estimate instead of guessing on the phone. You can usually stay home while we seal with caulk and foam, since the work happens above the ceiling. If the plan includes spray foam, we'll tell you before we start when kids and pets can come back in.
