Insulation removal in Pueblo CO - a bare attic, sealed and ready for new insulation

Most people call because something's off. The upstairs stays hot no matter what the thermostat says, there's a stain on the ceiling from an old roof leak, or there's a smell up there that turns out to be a mouse that overstayed. Laying fresh insulation on top of that keeps the problem, so the old stuff comes out first. The price moves with the attic's size and the type, amount and condition of what's in it. The schedule turns on the same things, plus whether mice are still living there and whether the material has to be checked for asbestos. You get your own figure after I've seen the attic, and the job usually ends with attic air sealing, because a bare attic is the easiest time to do it.

I start by looking at what's up there, because if it looks like vermiculite, that job goes to an abatement contractor, not us. For everything else, our crew lays down protection from the door to the attic hatch, pulls the old insulation out and bags it, and cleans the attic floor down to the framing. Once it's bare, we do the part removal is really for and air seal, closing the gaps around can lights, pipes, wires and the hatch that the old insulation was hiding. We also clear the eave vents, because a buried vent stops the attic from breathing and moisture ends up in the framing. Then you decide what goes back in.

Removal often turns up work somewhere else. The mice and moisture that ruined the attic sometimes did the same under the floor, so we'll look at crawl space insulation while we're there. If rooms stay cold after the attic's done, wall insulation is usually the next question.

Who handles permits depends on which side of the city line your house sits. Inside Pueblo city limits and Boone, the Southern Colorado Building Department issues building permits. Outside them, it's the Pueblo County Building Division, and the Colorado Springs side has its own office again. Whether a tear-out by itself needs a permit isn't something I'll guess at, so before we start we find out which office covers your address. If the job needs a permit, we pull it and line up the inspection.

Around Pueblo we see a lot of old insulation that's been settling for decades, flattened in the middle and thin at the edges where the roof comes down, and plenty of attics where mice moved in for the winter and never left. We get the same calls in Pueblo West and Fountain, and the order doesn't change: clear it, seal it, then insulate.