Excerpt from: A Monthly publication from South Carolina Electric Cooperative, Inc. – by Larry Cribb
Are you heating and cooling your attic? You probably have a hole in your ceiling which causes your heating and air conditioning bills to escalate, yet you aren’t aware of it. This hole is cut there for installation of your disappearing stairway which provides access to your attic. You may think that hole is filled up, but is it?
The problem is improperly fitting doors on these stairways is often caused by the wood warping, thus leaving gapping spaces when the door doesn’t close properly. Even doors which seem to fit pretty well have cracks surrounding the installation, and the doors themselves are usually made of very thin plywood without any added insulation. This causes your heating/cooling unit to run overtime to try and compensate for the loss of efficiency caused by the camouflaged hole in your ceiling.
“This is a problem that we run into all the time while performing energy audits for our consumer/members to show them how they can save money on their energy bills,” said Dwight Amick, Marketing Supervisor of Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative.
“Until Recently, there really hadn’t been an easy recommendation that we could give them,” he continued. “Even suggesting tearing out the existing stairway and installing a new one wasn’t a viable because of the cost involved, plus the fact that the new stairway still didn’t always completely solve the problem of sealing up that large hole in the ceiling. If you leave the light on in your attic, close the stairway, chances are you can see the light shining through cracks about the installation. This will help you determine just how large your problem is.”
Described simply, the Battic© Door fits on top of the opening when the disappearing stairway is closed. It, in effect, seals off the hole in your ceiling stopping either the super-heated or super-cold air of the attic from invading your living area.