Insulation Removal in Lake Worth Beach

What has to come out

Lake Worth Beach attics are low. College Park and the downtown blocks have plaster or wood ceilings and small hatches. Removal happens when a leak has soaked that thin layer, or rodents have nested in it. Standing up is not part of the day. Reaching the far bay without putting a foot through the ceiling is.

What stays

Four inches of dry original fiberglass is common and it stays. Figured near R-2.2 per inch, that is about R-9. The code floor is R-30. We seal and blow to R-38. A rear shed-roof addition is a foam conversation, not a reason to vacuum the main attic.

Getting the bags out

There is no shop in the city. The Delray shop is south. The Boca shop is 4263 NW 1st Ave. Low headroom means more time per bag. A planning range for a Boca ranch does not price a Lake Worth crawl.

How the day goes

Look
The hatch in Lake Worth Beach 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

If the lid is already soft from a leak, removal stops at the damaged bay until a roofer or a drywall contractor owns that repair. We do not bag insulation and leave a hole over a bedroom. The phone is (561) 654-7698.

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

Questions

When do you remove insulation in Lake Worth Beach?

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 Lake Worth Beach removal?

There is no shop in Lake Worth Beach. The crew comes from the Boca Raton shop at 4263 NW 1st Ave, Boca Raton, FL 33431. 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

Lake Worth Beach attics are low. College Park, the downtown blocks, and the streets toward the Intracoastal have small hatches and plaster or wood ceilings. Standing up is not part of the job. Reaching the far bay without crushing the ceiling is.

Four inches of original fiberglass is common. Figured at about R-2.2 per inch for settled fill, that is about R-9. The code floor in this climate is R-30. We seal the top plates and the hatch, then blow to R-38. There is no shop in the city. The Delray shop is south. The Boca shop is 4263 NW 1st Ave.

A rear addition with a shed roof is the foam conversation. The main attic, if it is vented, is not. Stuffing a vented Lake Worth attic with foam because the hatch was annoying closes the vents the roof was built with.

The code in Lake Worth Beach

Lake Worth Beach is in Palm Beach County. Table R301.1 of the 2023 Florida Building Code, Energy Conservation, lists Palm Beach County as climate zone 1A. Table R402.1.2 sets the zone 1 ceiling minimum at R-30. Lake Worth Beach does not publish its own attic R-value. The city enforces the Florida Building Code.

Palm Beach County is not in the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone. That zone is only Miami-Dade and Broward. Parts of the Palm Beach coast are still a wind-borne debris region, which is an opening-protection rule from the wind map, not an insulation number. 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 Lake Worth Beach