Ice dams or cold upstairs rooms usually mean warm air is leaking into the attic. We close the gaps so the heat stays inside.
Attic air sealing closes the gaps between your rooms and the attic, so warm, damp air from the house stops leaking up and melting the snow on your roof. In Rochester, MN, it's the first step against ice dams and cold upstairs rooms, and it comes before any new attic insulation.
Most people call us about ice along the roof edge, a cold bedroom over the garage or a heating bill that keeps going up. The attic insulation usually isn't the whole story. Warm air rides up through every hole in the ceiling, and piling more insulation on top of a leak just gives the draft a longer way out.
The price moves with how many openings your ceiling has, like can lights, bath fans and a chimney, how deep the old insulation is, since we have to move it to reach the gaps, and how tight the attic is to crawl through. The schedule turns on whether anything has to come out first and on what the permit check for your address turns up. My written estimate after the visit gives you the price for your house.
You call (507) 512-1787 or send the form, and we set a time for me to come take a look. From there, here's who does what.
We've been at this since 2017, and I still do the estimates, because leaks, damp spots and mouse nests don't show up over the phone. You get a written estimate that says what I found, which gaps we'd seal and whether the insulation needs work after.
Once you say yes, we sort out any permit the job needs and set a day for our install crew. If I found something that changes the order, like a bath fan venting into the attic, it goes on the plan ahead of the sealing.
Our install crew does the sealing and any insulation that goes on after it, and I'm on the job to check the sealing before it disappears under fill. We're licensed and insured.
Most ice dam calls turn out to be warm air sneaking up through the ceiling, so we start where it gets out. We pull back the old insulation and seal from the attic side around light fixtures and bath fans, where pipes and wires come up, along the tops of walls, over dropped soffits and around the chimney. Each gap gets the material that fits it, foam for small holes, rigid board over big open chases, and sheet metal with high-heat sealant where it's near a chimney or flue. If the old insulation turns out wet or full of droppings, I'll tell you, because sealing under it just buries the problem. Then we weatherstrip the hatch, keep the vents at the eaves open so the attic can breathe, and rake the insulation back even, full depth at the edges and not just piled in the middle.
Sealing and then topping up with loose fill blown in through a hose usually beats foam on cost, and it does the job in most attics we see. If the walls downstairs feel cold too, retrofit insulation adds insulation to walls that are already finished. When your ductwork runs through the attic, I'll usually point you to spray foam insulation instead, because foam seals the air and insulates at the same time, and it costs more for that.
Most of the work happens over your head, so your part is small.
If the hatch is in a closet, empty that shelf the day before so nobody's climbing over your coats. We lay drop cloths from the door to the ladder, because whatever lives in an old attic wants to come down with us.
Sealing with caulk and canned foam and blowing in loose fill usually doesn't mean leaving, though it's loud overhead and the kids and pets will want another room. If your plan includes spray foam over a bigger area, we tell you ahead of time when you can come back inside, since the foam maker sets that re-entry time.
Before we leave, we walk you through what we found and what we closed, since you're probably not climbing up there to check. The hatch goes back sealed and the hallway gets swept.
After the next good snow, look at the roof, because snow sitting evenly up there means the heat is staying downstairs. A bad attic tends to tell on itself at the eaves, so bare patches over one room are worth a call.
Send the form or call (507) 512-1787, and we'll reply within 1 business day to set a time for me to come out and go up in the attic. The estimate is free, done on site, with no pressure and no obligation, so have any notes on where the ice builds up or a report from an energy visit ready to show me. Satisfaction guaranteed on every job.
(507) 512-1787Usually, yes, because in many homes warm air leaking through ceiling openings, around a light fixture for example, is the main cause of ice dams. Sealing those leaks goes after the heat where it gets into the attic, so that's where we start. University of Minnesota Extension advises against a powered attic fan for ice dams here, since it can cause moisture problems in the attic and pull air from the house in ways you don't want.
Yes, and in Minnesota it isn't optional, because the state's residential energy code says attic insulation can't go in until the attic gaps you can reach are sealed. Sealing stops the air, and the insulation that goes on after it cuts heat loss further.
It can be, as long as your furnace, water heater, exhaust fans and anything else that burns fuel still gets enough air to run safely once the house is tighter. That gets planned along with the sealing, so at the estimate I look at what burns fuel in your house and how it gets its air, and we talk it through before any work starts.
We check with the city or county office that covers your address before work starts, and if our part of the job needs a permit, we take care of it. If you're doing work yourself on a single-family home, Rochester expects you to get the permits for it, and the city's Community Development office has permit guides on the city's building permits page. Whoever signs a permit there is responsible for the work meeting the rules, so it's fair to ask who'll sign it before work starts.
A contractor who works directly for you and offers more than one kind of skilled work needs a license from the State of Minnesota, and Rochester requires residential building contractors to hold that state license. A company that offers only one specialty doesn't need it, roofers aside, so ask what the job covers when you're comparing contractors.
We see most kinds of attics in Rochester, from older houses with lights cut into the top-floor ceiling and a chimney up the middle to newer ones with bath fans, dropped soffits and a hatch nobody's opened since closing day. Long winters make the leaks easy to spot from the street, and we do the same work in Byron, Stewartville, Kasson and other cities nearby.
If you want the leaks found before anyone quotes you, Rochester Public Utilities and Minnesota Energy Resources offer a home energy visit of about two hours for a one-time $75 fee, where a trained auditor runs a blower door test, a fan in a doorway that shows where air leaks in, and checks your insulation. You take their free Saving Energy 101 workshop first, then set up the visit through Rochester Public Utilities' energy audit page. When the visit flags attic sealing, the program can connect you with contractors, financing, incentives and utility rebates.
Snow on the roof shows where your heat is getting out, so snap a photo of the bare patches and icy eaves, then call (507) 512-1787 or send the form.
If you've got a question about a drafty attic or ice at the eaves, send it our way even if you're not ready for an estimate.
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