FORT BEND Blog

Benefits of A Attic Hatch Cover

Depending on where you are from the phrase “It’s summertime!” can stir up many different emotions. You might become excited for the possible vacations, family visits and time off. At the same time, you may hear this phrase and feel a bit anxious for you know that summertime means heat. Especially if you are in the peak of the season in Texas where we are.  There are no days that are not hot and/or humid.

The same can be true for the phrase “It’s winter!” The excitement for time with family on the winter holidays and visiting other places. But also, the anxiety now becomes how cold it will be and how to prepare to stay warm.

For a native Texan like me, one of the best things I have found that you can have in the summer is a nice, cold, half-priced Sonic drink. I have recently found this to be an absolute gift in the peak of any summer day. There was a time though while I was working that I set my cup down in my car’s cupholder while driving around town. Unbeknownst to me, my styrofoam cup suffered a very small hole in the bottom side. As my driving went on, the cup slowly leaked my Sprite and filled the cupholder while spilling into the second holder.

At this point, having no idea my cupholder was now filled, I placed my phone inside the holder. Even after just a few seconds of realizing my mistake, my phone was gone. The screen slowly became pixelated and turned to a black screen. It was heavily damaged and my ability to drive which was dependent on my phone’s mapping became a lot more complex.

Attics can sometimes have a similar story.

THE WHY

The importance to look for air leaks, tracking them down and preventing them is one of the keys of thoroughly insulating one’s home. No matter where we live and the time of year, we find ourselves in, the need for a comfortable and livable air climate is necessary.

Think about the hot summer days where the need to be cooled off as fast as possible can be seen just in walking a single step into a home. Now, think about those cold winter days, where the need to be warmed from staying indoors is at an all-time high because it is freezing outside. As someone who lived during the Texas freeze in February 2021, the need to have warmth inside a home is critical.

In the end, the comfort that great air climate can bring to one’s home is clearly incredibly valuable and can even be what can make a home feel like home.

There are many of reasons air leaks in and throughout a home. It could be due to how the home was built or the age of a home. It could also be that it has never been correctly and thoroughly sealed. The more unnecessary openings and cracks for air to get from one’s living space, the more air must be resupplied to keep the home on the set temperature. Air can leak in many places in your home and find its way through the smallest of openings. It can even go through recessed lighting, all vents, ceiling fans, and head right into your attic.

When this happens, your HVAC must work harder and therefore will build the amount of usage it must undergo (due to the lack of air efficiency) which of course builds on to the monthly energy bill. This can leave you with a large bill and not consistently comfortable. It can be a frustrating ordeal.

Luckily, there are various solutions that can work like spray foaming complete walls, attic ceilings to even can foaming cracks in the edges of drywall, canned lights, and other fixtures.

Another way, which is a very simple one, that can be done and is the one we will be discussing is installing Hatch Covers.

HATCH COVERS

First, we see that air sealing can be, “one of the least expensive and most cost-effective measures a building owner can take to improve comfort and energy efficiency.

A lot of cracks generally can’t be seen if one were to look for them, and some cannot necessarily be filled in unless one removes all of insulation in their attic. Most of the time we tend to forget about sealing off the attic access point.

Now sometimes, especially in newer homes they are sealed well. But most of the time, especially if it has not been addressed in a good amount of time, these access points can be the cause to why your living space’s temperature is not staying stable.

According to the Department of Energy: “A home’s attic access, such as an attic hatch, pull-down stairs, or knee-wall door, often goes uninsulated, representing one of the biggest deficiencies in the thermal barrier between the attic and conditioned space. This gap in the attic insulation increases heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer and makes indoor living areas uncomfortable. Unsealed, the attic access in a home leaks energy dollars & cases the home to be less comfortable.”

They also state that, “a 1/4-inch gap around the attic ladder can leak as much air as a standard bedroom air vent which equates to approximately 6,000 BTUs of energy loss (One BTU refers to the amount of energy that’s required to increase the temperature of a pound of water by 1° F (BHI Service)). With an average kilowatt cost of $0.15 cents, the average yearly savings by sealing the attic door is could be approximately $150 or $12.50 a month.”

Clearly the hatch cover can make a complete difference to airflow and a monthly bill, but another real difference is the temperature at the actual access point.