Insulation Removal in Fort Lauderdale

What has to come out

Fort Lauderdale removal splits with the house. Victoria Park, Coral Ridge, Las Olas, Rio Vista, Idlewyld, and Harbor Beach are low attics, closet hatches, and plaster. The fill comes out when it is soaked or nesting, and the day is a crawl. Southwest 33312 and Riverland are wider. Lauderdale Isles is canal houses, mostly one story. A beach tower has no attic.

What stays

A dry old attic with a sound lid is a seal and a blow to R-38, even if the only way through it is a crawl. Foam on an addition or a flat-roof section is not a reason to vacuum the vented hip.

Getting the bags out

There is no Fort Lauderdale shop. The closer Broward address is 681 SW 16th Ter, Pompano Beach. The Boca shop is 4263 NW 1st Ave. Plaster under a wet batt is the stop-work point. We do not put a knee through a bedroom ceiling to finish a bag.

How the day goes

Look
The hatch in Fort Lauderdale gets opened before a truck is promised. Depth, moisture, and whether the mess is the whole attic or one bay.
Protect
The rooms under the hatch get covered. The bags stay on the path that was agreed. A plaster or wood lid that is already soft stops the day.
Remove
Ruined fill is vacuumed into bags and hauled off. The deck should be visible where the bad fill was. Dry fill next to it is not taken just to make the attic look empty.
Next
Sanitizing only if the insulation was contaminated. Then the holes that are finally visible get sealed. Then new insulation to R-38. Those are not one price.

After the deck is bare

Harbor Beach scuttles are small. If the opening cannot pass the waste, the opening gets fixed first. After a contaminated crawl, sanitizing is the bare deck, then the blow. Call (561) 654-7698.

The install that follows is blown-in insulation in Fort Lauderdale. Contaminated decks are attic sanitizing, a separate page. The contractor, separate from this tear-out, is the insulation contractor in Fort Lauderdale.

Questions

When do you remove insulation in Fort Lauderdale?

Is insulation removal included in a blown-in price?

No. Removal is its own price. A planning range for new fill does not include bagging out the old insulation. Sanitizing, if the fill was contaminated, is a second price. The new blow is a third.

Where is the shop for a Fort Lauderdale removal?

There is no shop in Fort Lauderdale. The crew comes from the Pompano Beach shop at 681 SW 16th Ter, Pompano Beach, FL 33069. Call (561) 654-7698.

The attic numbers, not a brochure

The 2023 Florida Building Code, Energy Conservation, Table R402.1.2 sets a climate zone 1 ceiling at R-30 and a climate zone 2 ceiling at R-38. Cardinal installs R-38 and checks the inches. A Florida page that lists R-49 to R-60, or R-3.2 to R-3.8 per inch for both fiberglass and cellulose, is using a different book. Table R402.4.1.1 says air-permeable insulation shall not be used as the air seal.

Quotes are prepared by Russell Y, a building scientist, BPI certified, and certified to perform blower door testing. When the door is run, the result is air changes per hour at 50 pascals, the method in R402.4.1.2. That section limits new houses in climate zones 1 and 2 to 7 ACH50. An insulation job on an existing house is not automatically that test. We report the number only when we measured it.

Insulation numbers Cardinal uses against the Florida code
Item	Number	What it means
Zone 1 ceiling, Florida code	R-30 minimum	Palm Beach and Broward
Zone 2 ceiling, Florida code	R-38 minimum	Not R-49 and not R-60
What Cardinal installs	R-38, depth checked	Above the zone 1 floor
New blown fiberglass	About R-2.5 per inch	Not R-3.2 to R-3.8
Settled fiberglass	About R-2.2 per inch	4 inches is about R-9
New cellulose	About R-3.6 per inch	Denser. Still not an air seal
Open-cell foam	About R-3.6 per inch	A roof-deck product
Closed-cell foam	About R-6.5 per inch	2 inches is about R-13

The attics on this page

Fort Lauderdale splits at the water and again at I-95. Victoria Park and Coral Ridge in 33304, Las Olas and Rio Vista in 33305, and Idlewyld are older houses, low attics, closet hatches, and plaster ceilings. Harbor Beach in 33316 is tighter still, often a small scuttle on a deep-water lot.

Southwest 33312, including Riverland, is the wider attic. Lauderdale Isles is canal houses, mostly one story, not a high-rise. A condo tower on the beach has no attic. There is no Fort Lauderdale shop. The closer Cardinal address in Broward is 681 SW 16th Ter, Pompano Beach. The Boca shop is 4263 NW 1st Ave.

An old Fort Lauderdale attic is often a crawl. The job is still a seal and a blow to R-38 when the fill is dry and the lid is sound. Foam shows up on additions and on flat-roof sections that were never vented. It does not replace blown-in on a vented hip roof.

The code in Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale is in Broward County. Table R301.1 lists Broward as climate zone 1A. The zone 1 ceiling minimum is R-30. Fort Lauderdale does not publish a separate insulation number.

Broward County is in the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, with Miami-Dade. The whole county is in it, not just the beach. Chapter 44 of the 2023 Florida Building Code, Residential, sends roof assemblies, wall coverings, and windows to the stricter Building-code chapters. Roofing and openings used there need approval for HVHZ use, a Miami-Dade or Broward Notice of Acceptance or a Florida Product Approval that includes the HVHZ. That is a roof and window rule. It does not change the attic ceiling from R-30, and a blown-in job does not carry a roof product approval. Section R806.2 of the 2023 Florida Building Code, Residential, sets the net free vent area at 1/150 of the attic. The exception is 1/300 only when 40 to 50 percent of that area is within 3 feet of the ridge and the rest is in the bottom third. Insulation cannot close the soffit. R806.3 requires at least 1 inch at the eave vent.

The county zone is Table R301.1. The Boca Raton worked example, including the vent math, is the building code page. Cardinal still installs a vented attic to R-38 and checks the depth.

Insulation removal in Fort Lauderdale