Fold down attic stairs often don’t seal well and aren’t insulated, resulting in increased heating and cooling bills for your home. Watch this video for an inexpensive, DIY way to insulate attic stairs and make your home more energy efficient.
To insulate fold down attic stairs:
For step-by-step instructions on this project, check out our article on How to Insulate Attic Drop Down Access Stairs.
Please Leave a Comment
You can follow comments to this article by subscribing to the RSS news feed with your favorite feed reader.
We want to hear from you! In addition to posting comments on articles and videos, you can also send your comments and questions to us on our contact page or at (800) 946-4420. While we can't answer them all, we may use your question on our Homefront radio show, Today’s Homeowner TV show, or online at dannylipford.com.
A fold down attic staircase, like the one I’m standing on here, is really convenient, because they allow easy access into the attic, but they’re also great energy wasters. That’s because the floor of the attic is always insulated really well, but when you close the attic, all you have is a quarter-inch plywood panel to prevent the air from coming up into the attic. So to solve that problem, I built a box out of three-quarter-inch insulation board – this is polystyrene insulation board.
What you need to do first is get up in the attic and have someone close the staircase. Then measure all around the staircase and the height of the staircase. Then you just cut the styrene with a razor knife to fit. Now, to hold the pieces of styrene together, what I use is metallic duct tape – not regular cloth duct tape, but the metallic duct tape works great.
Then just tape it right down to the deck, Now you can buy readymade units that go over the attic, but they cost about two hundred bucks. Now, this one – for less than twenty dollars – works just as well.
October 18th, 2011 at 10:07 am
Gee that top edge looked rough. I think you could do better in showing how to get a tighter seal on the door edge. Adding some adhesive foam tape and maybe a little weight on the edges to help push it down. You also could wrap a batt of insulation in some plastic and attach to the lid to give weight and higher R-value.
Joe T. Says:October 18th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Hey Mark, Yes, there are several ways to upgrade and improve this tip. Installing self-stick foam weatherstripping around the polystyrene door would help. But remember, these are “simple” solutions–shown in about 60 seconds–so they’re often less complicated and sophisticated than standard remodeling projects. Thanks for writing.–Joe T.
April 15th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Hi Danny,
Just wanted to thank you for this info. It looks simple enough that even I can do it. Anyway, again thanks for your time and energy in making all your videos. Know you are appreciated.
Mary