Builder Sprayed Insulation All Over Furnace In Attic

The rigid insulation was saturated from condensation.

Builder sprayed insulation all over furnace in attic. Batt or rolled insulation or blown loose fill insulation fiberglass or cellulose can be installed on top of old insulation. A furnace in the attic is a design that works for all homes. You can build a small enclosure around the furnace with rigid foam insulation then pick up the insulation on the ceiling inside the enclosure. She asked me to go into the attic to find the roof leaks or where the snow is blowing in through the soffits.

A case of incompatibility. If you don t have a crawl space or a basement then it can be a challenge to place a furnace on the ground floor of the structure. Any existing batt or roll insulation in the attic should have the facing against the attic drywall floor or no facing at all. I found instead a vintage 3 ton ac unit with 1 rigid insulation taped all over it and insulated flex duct snaking all over the poorly insulated attic.

If the furnace is a fuel burning one be sure you provide air for combustion. If the air is not piped in directly to the furnace the attic space would be considered the plenum. If this house has a basement then both handlers or furnaces should be installed there. If the builder says that will cost more then use the money you would have spent on the foam insulation and attic enclosures to do this.

Gable vents and soffits are the big culprits here. You might not receive the same air movement benefits if the unit is in a garage either. They also need to seal off areas of air leakage to the outdoors. A lot of builders and homeowners are going with spray foam insulation because of the airtightness benefits.

Otherwise humidity will quickly creep into your attic. But then the questioner mentioned that the spray foam contractor had intentionally left big holes to the outside by not sealing the gable vents. A plenum is the source of combustion air. This puts the furnace in at least semi conditioned space.

If you pipe the air in directly to the furnace and it does not use attic space air then you can use sprayfoam. The attic floor needs an insulation value of r30 40. The attic is the worst place to install hvac equipment and duct work. A while back i wrote about the incompatibility of putting an atmospheric combustion furnace in a sealed attic.