#Rafter baffles how to#
#Rafter baffles code#

They can also help prevent ice dams and reduce noise in your attic. On the other hand, if you live in a cold climate and have an uninsulated attic, the lack of insulation can mean that the heat from your home will escape through them and cause your heating bills to soar.Īttic baffles are an easy way to increase the effectiveness of your insulation. This can be great for your heating system as it means you dont need to run it, but not so good for your wallet as it means more money is being spent on heating.

#Rafter baffles how to#

How to install attic baffles Why you should install attic baffles: are they necessary?Īttics are often at a temperature of about 90 degrees all year round.

SmartBaffle 16 Insulation Baffle for 16″ Rafter Bays.

What to do before installing attic baffles.

Why you should install attic baffles: are they necessary?.

I did it in my 45' x 13' bonus room when I finished it off and it cost me a day and a half in time but it works so much better and allowed me to get to R36. It provides vastly better airflow than those cheap commercial baffles and you can get R6 from it right off the bat. I don't know the scale of this project, but strongly consider making your own baffles on site with 1' thick rigid foam board. It is expensive, toxic and you will never know if the roof is leaking until massive damage has occurred. also agree with him on avoiding spray foam. If you want to do this economically, rolled fiberglass is the way to go. Lots of good suggestions here, especially K'ledgeBldr above with the polyiso panels. Anything in that R20 and lower range will be a waste of time. If you really are conditioning this space, you need to get it to at least R38, preferably higher. If it is framed with 2' x 6' already, adding a 2' x 4' on edge would give you roughly a 9' cavity to work with. Guess what's happened to your framing in that time!?Ĭlick to expand.Yeah, as K'ledgeBldr suggested, just add furring or 'scabs' to the bottom of your top chord to gain depth.

I'm not a fan of spray foam directly to roof decking- if for some reason you were to 'spring-a-leak' you wouldn't know about for probably years. The only thing that would help from a radiant heat gain perspective would be having radiant barrier decking. You can obviously yeild a higher R-value with thicker panels- but they get real expensive. The combination of airspace, batt insulation, the polyiso, and the drywall, will yield almost a R-40. You can install drywall right over the polyiso panels with glue and 5' screws.

Foam the butt connections and seal the seams. With some cost restraints I would do a hybrid system as follows- with the 5-1/2' cavity add baffles in every cavity from the kneewalls to the ridge, then UNFACED R-13 batt (unfaced because you don't want a double vapor barrier scenario), then over the top (bottom) of the cord install 4' foil-faced (to the inside-conditioned space) polyisocyanurate panels.

#Rafter baffles code#

There's two ways to achieve a code compliant 'vaulted ceiling'- you can scab onto the bottom of the top cord to achieve a depth that will accommodate a baffle vent and enough batt insulation to get to R-38 or use a hybrid system that uses materials with higher R-values. Even if they're on 24' centers you can still get rolled batts in 23' widths. I'll assume you're referring to attic trusses and the top cord is 2X6.