Insulation contractor in Summerville, SC - cooler upstairs rooms and warmer floors

Long, humid summers are behind most of the calls we get from Summerville. Heat soaks into the attic all afternoon, and in many houses here the ductwork runs right through that heat, so the cooled air picks up warmth on its way to the rooms, the upstairs stays warm into the evening and the power bill climbs. That's why the first thing I look at up there is where the ducts run and how well they're sealed, because it changes what I'd suggest for the rest of the attic.

Older houses that have seen years of repairs often hold more than the homeowner expects, such as old wiring, signs of water or a gas appliance that needs its air supply left alone. I look for those before we add anything, because new insulation shouldn't create a new problem.

The first thing I confirm for a Summerville address is whether the house sits inside town limits or in unincorporated Dorchester, Charleston or Berkeley County, because the town itself treats that as the first question. Inside town, the Town of Summerville's Building Department requires permits and inspections for renovations and repairs to a home's structure and systems, and when a job needs one, the start date waits on the town's review. Before anyone comes in, you can check two things about a contractor. They should be licensed through the state licensing board for the work they do, and a business based outside town, as we are, needs the town's annual business license, which runs from May 1 to April 30.

We're fully licensed and insured, and we work across the cities around Summerville, including Sangaree just up the road and Ladson next door. The price here comes down mostly to what's already in your attic or crawl space and how easy the space is to reach, while the schedule turns on the permit question above and on how much prep the space needs. I give you the figure for your own house once I've seen it.

On our jobs, Summerville reads like two places. In the older part of town, there are houses that have stood for generations, many raised on crawl spaces, with insulation that was added piece by piece over the years or hardly at all. Farther out, newer neighborhoods fill with two-story homes and rooms over the garage, much like the houses we work on in Goose Creek.

That split shapes the work. In the older houses, most of my attention goes under the floor and into what's already in the attic, and in the newer ones it usually goes to a second floor that runs warmer than the first.