How to read a Delray Beach attic | Cardinal

33444 and 33483 are the east side. Pineapple Grove, Lake Ida, Tropic Isle, and the houses toward the beach are older CBS, often with plaster or a fragile lid and a hatch that was cut for a person who is already inside the closet. You may get one honest measurement at the opening and a look down one bay. That is still a measurement. Write the inches down.

Settled fiberglass is about R-2.2 per inch. Four inches, which is common on this side, is about R-9. It is not R-30. The 2023 Florida Building Code puts Palm Beach County in climate zone 1A. Table R402.1.2 sets the ceiling floor at R-30. The install is R-38. From a bare ceiling that is about 15 inches of new fiberglass at about R-2.5 per inch. Over 4 inches of dry fill, the new layer is about 11 to 12 inches, installed level.

The Delray shop sits in this part of the city, at 955 S Congress Ave, in 33445. 33445 is the band around the shop and the streets just west of it. A short eave is easy to bury from a closet hatch. Section R806.3 still wants at least a 1-inch space between the insulation and the roof sheathing. If the old blow is packed into the soffit, the intake is already gone.

33446 is west of I-95. Kings Point, the Villages of Oriole, Delray Villas, and The Hamlet were built with batts that have slumped. A dry batt stays. It still counts, at the settled number, not at the R-value printed the year the villa was new. New fiberglass goes over it after the plates and the hatch are sealed. Pulling every dry batt so a new batt job can be sold does not close the gaps at the wires.

A lot of Kings Point is condominiums. A mid-rise or a tower with no scuttle is not a blown-in job. There is no attic floor. A villa or a single-story unit with a vented ceiling over the rooms is the job. Say which building you have when you call. 33484 runs toward the Boca line. If the house is on that line, the ZIP matters more than the city name on the mailbox.

These attics are wider than Tropic Isle. The thin spot is often the outside wall, not the hatch. Measure both if you can stand. A pile at the opening and a bare eave averages to a lie. Depth markers, at least one every 300 square feet, facing the hatch, are how you check the crew later.

Wet, matted, or moldy fill comes out before any new product goes down. Droppings and nests come out too. Blowing over them holds the mess against the ceiling. A pest company gets the animals out. We do not claim that license. Removal is its own price. Sanitizing the bare deck is a second price. The blow is a third.

A roof stain is a roof repair. Insulation on a live leak stores the water. A non-IC can light needs clearance or a listed cover. A bath fan that ends in the attic is dumping shower moisture under the tile. The hose does not fix either one. Cellulose is about R-3.6 per inch and heavier. An old plaster lid on the east side often should not carry it. Fiberglass is the usual top-up.

A planning range for about 1,800 square feet with about 4 inches of settled fiberglass, brought to R-38 in new blown fiberglass, is about $2,100 to $3,350. A Kings Point villa is often smaller. An east-side crawl takes longer because of the hatch, not because the R-value changes. The range is not a bid.

Russell Y prepares the quotes. He is a building scientist, BPI certified, and certified to perform blower door testing. Ask to see the card at the estimate. An ACH50 number is a whole-house test. Zone 1's 7 air changes per hour is that test, not a bag count. You get the number only if the test was run. The seal on the ceiling is part of the blown-in day either way.

The listing for this city is the Delray Beach shop, 955 S Congress Ave, Delray Beach, FL 33445. Call (561) 654-7698. Customers can walk in. Boca Raton is a different shop, at 4263 NW 1st Ave, same phone. Boynton Beach has no shop. The walk-in for a Boynton attic is this Delray address. There is no second Delray pin west of I-95.