Blown in insulation and can lights.

[Industrial Toys]

Spraying the roof makes no sense to me at all. You would still have heat escaping into your vented attic space. Ripping out the bats and spraying the ceiling joists seems to me like a better plan.

I am in a similar situation. Bats, poorly fitted, with no vapur barrier, just tar paper backed bats. Now I want to add blown insulation but this will not address the issue of water vapour escaping upwards.

 

[Zerk]

You can put chicken wire around the lights to create an air space. Some newer ones are rated direct contact, but I doubt ones from the 70s are.

When you look at costs, do you really run these lights 4 hours a day? Most lights in my house are not on that much, only a handful. Some are flourescent, some incadescent for light quality.

 

[Zerk]

Spraying the roof makes no sense to me at all. You would still have heat escaping into your vented attic space. Ripping out the bats and spraying the ceiling joists seems to me like a better plan.

I am in a similar situation. Bats, poorly fitted, with no vapur barrier, just tar paper backed bats. Now I want to add blown insulation but this will not address the issue of water vapour escaping upwards.

Lot of of old house did not have vapor barriers. If I am built one I would put one in. My 70s house I added R-19 crossed by 30 fiberglass bats. I went with fiberglass cause I didn't need a 2nd person.

I am not a general contractor, but I suspect ventalation is more important then vapor barrier. I don't live in a real humid area though. I worked in a lot of attics in old homes, many 100 years old, and never noticed anything.

 

[EddieWalker]

Most non IC can lights have circles or paper tubes around them so that no insulation gets on the lights. They are holes in your ceiling that you lose air conditioning through, or heat in the winter. The more you have, the more it's costing you in energy loss. Kind of like have a small skylight in your ceiling.

I would go with LED's like the others have mentioned. I think it's still new technology, but it seem to have a lot of promise.

Too expensive to remove and replace the can lights with IC models.

I went to fix some can lights on a house in a gated golf course subdivision. It was a very nice, very big house that had four lights not working. I pulled them apart and found that all the plastic around the wires had melted off and the framing close to the lights was charred black. The insulation was packed all around the lights and it was also charred black. The breaker never tripped and the hot wire was live. My only guess why the house didn't catch on fire was there was so much insulation over the lights that there wasn't enough oxygen to get a fire going.

 

[Zerk]

Breakers trip on over current, not on heat.

 

[Industrial Toys]

That's if they trip at all!

I am still looking for a "whole panel" arc fault sensor that could trip a main breaker.

 

[Zerk]

That's if they trip at all!

I am still looking for a "whole panel" arc fault sensor that could trip a main breaker.

I speced one out a long time ago, for sub panel. Called shunt trip breaker, if I remember right.

You could put some kind of 100 amp or 200 amp contactor, that is picked up by the arc flash breaker. I'd want a timer, to avoid being put in the dark. In substations we call it breaker failure. A breaker is supposed to trip, next breaker up starts timing. It still sees current at end of timer, and trips.

Never heard of this for a house though. Be cheaper to just replace the breakers periodically.

 

[4570Man]

I would change them all to led. It probably wouldn't matter, but $150 is pretty cheap insurance. Led's are finally getting affordable. They used to be about $40 per bulb.

 

[jk96]

If you can do the work yourself you should be able to replace the housings with IC rated housings for less than $10 each. Trim kits should cost about the same or less. New housings should have thermal protection as well. They will turn off if they get too hot.

 

[jk96]

Spraying the roof makes no sense to me at all. You would still have heat escaping into your vented attic space. Ripping out the bats and spraying the ceiling joists seems to me like a better plan.

I am in a similar situation. Bats, poorly fitted, with no vapur barrier, just tar paper backed bats. Now I want to add blown insulation but this will not address the issue of water vapour escaping upwards.

Our roof is spray foamed. No other attic insulation is used. In this case, the attic is not ventilated and becomes part of the conditioned space of the home.