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Florida can be bad..... I know of someone from here (very wealthy), who offered a custom-builder in FLA the literal (and on paper) blank-cheque to upgrade insulation the way he wanted - builder just blew him off; couldn't be bothered.
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Rgds, D.
I hope that person found another builder. Adding insulation in the attic is easy at build time and not hard afterwards. Having additional insulation in floors and walls at build time is simple. If the builder could not handle that requirement, I would find a new builder, since this GC will be having other issues. I would guess that insulation in the attic was not the issue but the wall and floor insulation.
The building code in NC requires R38 in the attic. Our old house in the city was built in the 70's and might have had R30-35. Just a guess because it was a loose insulation that settles over time. I always intended to add insulation but never got around to the job. the big problem was the 2x4 walls with wood exterior fitted with aluminum windows. You could fee the energy transfer though those frames. I did fit some clear plastic panels on the inside of the house to insulate a bit which worked. There was also quite a bit of energy loss through the wall slab intersection. You could feel the energy transfer, especially in the winter.
When I designed our house, I followed the guidelines for our area as laid out in the appropriate book for our area from this guy,
Joseph Lstiburek. I THINK we have R40 in the attic and supposedly adding more does not do any good. Having said that, the one big f... up on the house was from the HVAC installation in the attic.... The 2x6 walls have fiberglass insulation but on the exterior this is 1 inch of rigid foam for more R value but to also act as a thermal break. There is six inches of R30 rigid foam under the concrete slab if I remember right.
We have plenty of insulation and the GC had no problem in doing the work. We put in big windows in each room, and even though the windows are energy efficient, they are not as good as the 2x6 wall. In other words we made a very energy efficient wall, and then poked big holes in the energy efficiency.
Tis worth the view but...
