Attic Ladder Insulation

With the high cost of energy these days, it is important to keep all the heat you can inside your home. A major source of air leaks can be the folding stairs leading into the attic. These access doors necessitate a large hole being cut in the ceiling. If not sealed well, these access doors can allow a lot of cold air to migrate from the attic to the inside of the home.

One of the first things to look at on the attic ladder is where the access door meets the ceiling. This gap is where most of the cold air can penetrate. It is important that this seam is sealed properly. A good way to do this is with foam weather stripping. This product is applied with a self adhesive strip. Be careful when installing that it does not interfere with the proper operation of the door. If weather-stripping keeps your door from opening it doesn't do you much good.

Once the edges have been sealed as well as possible it is time to look at the rest of the door. Because of the need for access, the area above the ladder can not be insulated like the rest of the attic floor. These doors need as much as 15 square feet to function. That is a lot of area to not have insulated. Cold air can migrate through the plywood covering almost as easily as through the cracks around the door frame.

Since you can't lay insulation over the opening, a good way to help with heat loss is to build a box over the opening. Using rigid foam board insulation, build a box to cover the access door. This box will stick up about 4 or 5 inches above the access door. Use a box knife to cut the panels and assemble them with duct tape. Cut a door out of the same insulation to cover the box. This door can be hinged with more duct tape. Place the entire box over the attic ladder access door and seal around the edges with caulking.

When accessing the attic, simply climb the ladder then open the door made out of insulation to enter the attic space. This will keep a dead air barrier between the cold attic and the warm interior of your home. If you don't want to build your own, there are many commercially available products that serve the same purpose, but with a little ingenuity and work you can save a little money and make your own.