Air sealing services in Santa Maria CA - a house that stops leaking air

Most calls start with a hot upstairs, cold floors or a room over the garage that never feels right, and usually the house already has some insulation up there. The price turns on how many leaks there are, how hard they are to reach and how much old insulation we have to pull back. It also turns on whether any of that insulation is soaked or full of droppings and has to come out first through insulation removal. The schedule mostly depends on getting into the attic and on whether the building office wants a permit, which we check before we start. When I come out, I'll tell you what I found and write the estimate for your house.

A lot of leaks hide under the insulation where you can't see them, so we don't stop at the easy spots around doors and pipes. We start in the attic, because that's where most of the air gets out. Our crew pulls the insulation back along the tops of the walls, around can lights, pipes, wires and the hatch, and anywhere a chase runs down into the house. We seal each gap with what it needs and keep the eave vents clear so the attic can still breathe. Then we lay the insulation back level, with the edges as deep as the middle. If you have gas appliances, I'll recommend getting their venting checked once the house is tighter, and the questions below explain why.

The trade-off I talk through most is foam. Closed-cell foam insulation, a dense foam that blocks moisture, seals air while it insulates. It costs more, so in most attics I'd rather seal the gaps and top up the loose fill, unless your ductwork lives up there, and then foam usually earns its cost. If your house has a basement, the same kind of leaks run along the top of the foundation walls, and we handle those with basement insulation.

I can't tell you from here whether sealing alone needs a permit at your address, so we ask before work starts. Inside city limits that question goes to the city's Building Division, which makes sure ongoing projects carry the permits they need. Outside the city, we check with the building office that covers your address. If they say a permit is needed, we take care of the application and set up the inspections. To check a permit fee estimate or your house's permit history yourself, the city's permit counter is at 110 S. Pine St., Room 101, open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Around Santa Maria we see a lot of older single-story houses with the ductwork in the attic, cool foggy mornings and afternoon wind that finds every gap, so the work usually starts at the ceiling. We're based in Santa Maria and work across the cities around it in northern Santa Barbara County and southern San Luis Obispo County. We see the same kind of houses on jobs in Orcutt and Nipomo.