Home insulation in Davenport IA - even heat in every room, attic to basement

A room that's hot upstairs in July or cold over the garage in January usually traces back to gaps and thin spots somewhere else in the house, and sometimes the fix is attic air sealing and a top-up rather than a whole new job. The price turns on which spaces need work, how many inches are already up there, whether old material has to come out first and whether we're working in open framing or finished walls. The schedule turns on the same things, plus anything that has to be settled before we start, like a wet spot or old vermiculite. I'll give you your own figure after I've walked the house.

Most calls start with one cold room, so I look at the whole house from attic to basement, then tell you where your money does the most good first. If the old insulation got soaked or is full of droppings, it comes out before anything new goes in, because covering it just keeps the problem. Next comes air sealing, closing the gaps around can lights, pipes and the attic hatch, so the new insulation isn't fighting a draft. We keep the eave vents clear so the attic can still breathe, and we fill to an even depth all the way out to the edges, where thin coverage usually hides. For most attics I'd rather seal the gaps and top up with blown-in, loose fill we blow through a hose, than sell you foam, which costs more and seals air while it insulates. That changes when your ductwork runs through the attic, and then foam usually earns its price. When we're done, our crew cleans up and I go over the finished job with you.

Some houses need work beyond the attic. When the old material can't stay, insulation removal clears it out so the new layer starts clean. Cold floors usually point down instead of up, and crawl space insulation is often what finally warms the room sitting over it.

The City of Davenport Building Counter issues permits for general building improvements, and its list names remodels, roofing, siding and windows but not insulation, so it doesn't settle whether your job needs one. Ask the Building Counter if you're unsure, and if your job does need a permit, we take care of it with the city and tell you about it up front. The city generally wants building work done by a licensed and bonded contractor, who takes out the permit for the owner. If you hold title to a single-family home, you can do your own remodeling without a contractor license, except mechanical, electrical and plumbing work, and you'd get your permit at the Building Counter in the Public Works Center, Monday through Friday. Iowa's residential energy code says remodeling or renovating one- and two-family homes falls outside its scope.

A lot of the houses we see here are older, with a few inches of settled insulation, a drafty attic hatch and a room over the garage that never keeps up. We run into the same thing on jobs in Bettendorf and across the river in Rock Island, and we work in plenty of cities on both sides that don't have a page here.