Bonus Rooms
BIRD-Family Insulation gets countless phone-calls and emails from clients who have uncomfortable, leaky, drafty, hot/cold Bonus Rooms. In turn, we have provided comfortable and affordable Bonus Rooms for our clients, who’s enthusiastic satisfaction includes comments like these:
“After Bob super-insulated our attic and floors, heating costs are $70 less per month, and our baby’s floor (the bonus room), is no longer cold to sit on!” —Kathleen P., Conyers
“The guys you have working for you are awesome and do a great job. Their knowledge and skills show through their work. Excellent, excellent, excellent – You guys are very professional and did an an outstanding job. Very pleased with your company and job completed. ” —Steven W., Covington (client’s Bonus Room was insulated)
—Please make sure to read Bob’s article on Bonus Rooms below the pictures.
Drilling into the empty, void, drafty cavities in a Bonus Room floor.
Andrew dense-packing cellulose into empty, hot/cold cavities in Bonus Room floor - comfortable now!
Pete plugging and spackling the holes. Working his magic!
Tada! A comfortable Bonus Room!
Bonus Room Energy-Performance Make-Over
Often upstairs “bonus rooms” are marginally insulated. These rooms are perched above unheated garages. When these rooms are utilized as living space, generally this is what happens:
- An existing HVAC duct is spliced, and a vent added (like a “sucker” growing on a tomato plant…) to supply conditioned air to the “bonus” room.
- The homeowner realizes this converted space isn’t comfortable. Especially during the cold of winter and the heat of summer is this particular room most uncomfortable.
- At this point, a window A/C unit may be added to cool during the dog days of summer. This is both noisy, and conflicts with many community covenants.
Usually there are three fundamental problems with bonus rooms.
* The HVAC was originally sized for the main house (without the bonus room capacity). Therefore when a supply vent was added to provide heated and cooled air to this space, the source was taken from an existing line, (diluted, if you please).
* If the homeowner purchased the house with the bonus room “unfinished”, this room may not be insulated. The garage ceiling passes the trapped heat right through the bonus room floor. This room is like an island perched on stilts, surrounded by a hostile, unwanted environment.
* Even in brand new houses, often the insulation is installed lying on the garage ceiling, NOT in continuous, full contact with the subfloor overhead. An R-19 batt is 6″ thick. Joists and floor systems are taller, leaving a huge air channel for lateral air movement to negatively influence your overhead floor. Add an eave and soffit vent on each end of the joist run, and no wonder the room is miserably uncomfortable. We have the remedy!
Here is how Bird-Family Insulation has helped folks with these bonus room blues.
- Insulate the garage ceiling by drilling holes in the ceiling, and pumping the joist cavities full of cellulose insulation. Afterwards, the holes are plugged and spackled. If your garage ceiling has a textured finish, we finish it so well; you’ll never know we were there!
- Sidewalls (knee walls) are thoroughly insulated. In some cases we are required to cut (and frame) scuttle holes in the walls when there is no access behind them. While behind the kneewalls, we seal the floor system joist cavities.
- Ceiling space is super-insulated abundantly, (R49). In some homes, we remove old, non-performing fiberglass batts from cathedral cavities and replace with dense-packed cellulose (a 100% thermal performance improvement).
- HVAC work includes the following:
- Properly size and add appropriate supply vents.
- Properly size and add a return vent.
- Admittedly, you are re-directing some air supply from current living areas into this bonus room.
Usually this is all it takes to get these rooms dramatically more comfortable year around. As with all of our projects at BIRD-Family Insulation, your satisfaction is guaranteed.
Bob Bird
BIRD-Family Insulation
“Georgia’s Home Energy Pro”
404-538-9168
You must be completely, enthusiastically satisfied with the quality of our work in your home, or your insulation is FREE. 