Insulation Contractor Serving Shelby, NC

Shelby Homes and Their Attics

Story-and-a-Half Bungalows in Belvedere Park

Belvedere Park was platted in 1921 about half a mile east of downtown, and the nomination for the East Marion-Belvedere Park district counts the bungalow as its most common style. Most of the district's buildings date from the early and middle 1920s. Several of the bungalows it describes are a story and a half, with gable dormers lighting rooms tucked under the roof. Upstairs, the side walls are short knee walls, and behind each one is a narrow wedge of attic. ENERGY STAR names the area behind and below a knee wall as a usual air leak. Those wedges get air sealed and insulated too, not just the flat attic over the middle of the house.

Gambrel Roofs and Kit Houses on West Warren Street

The West Warren Street district filled in after its west end was subdivided in 1918, and its nomination traces Craftsman houses there through the 1920s and early 1930s. Two of them were built from Aladdin Company mail-order kits. Several Colonial Revival houses in the district have gambrel roofs whose shed dormers hold close to a full second floor rather than an attic. In a house like that, little attic is left: a shallow space above the upstairs ceiling and slim pockets at the sides. We find out how each one can be reached, then seal and insulate them so the coverage has no gaps or thin spots.

The Shelby Cotton Mill Village

Shelby Cotton Mill opened in April 1900, and by the early 1950s many of its workers lived in 145 company houses beside it. In 1920 the company plumbed 84 of those houses for bathrooms and built 10 more. The 2015 nomination says the mill houses still standing west and south of the mill have changed too much to be listed. A bathroom added long after a house was built can mean pipes cut through the ceiling and up into the attic. ENERGY STAR counts the holes around plumbing and wiring among the leaks to plug before insulating, so we seal around each one first.