Thread: New one on me?

Came across this "insulation" in a attic today. The home was probably built in the 40's Does anyone happen to know what this stuff is and how it works. It had a paper on the underneath side but the top layer almost looked like it had "tin foil". It was stapled to the top of the ceiling rafters. The width of the material is 24" wide. Between The the material and the plaster was air, no other insulation was found.

Basically that's what it is ... air space ... paper ... air space ... foil.

It was common in many older attics I've been in.

It created two pockets of air space, one between the ceiling and the paper, one between the paper and the foil, then the foil sort-of-served-as a radiant barrier. That is, until dust settled on it. Sometimes it was made with the foil on the bottom and the paper on the top, not sure which would have been more effective.

Once torn as in the photo it is basically useless and needs to be removed with a better insulation installed in its place.

Thank you Jerry P. I was think something of the sort but did not seem like an efficient way to insulate an attic, mostly like on a cold day like today.

Glen

I've never seen it attics.... lots of times in crawls, though. My 1979 house has it underneath. As JP says it's useless once it rips, which it ALWAYS is.

It's probably not found much where there was a lot of knob and tube wiring in the real old homes ... for obvious reasons.