Attic Insulation in Spencer, NC

Spencer Homes and Their Attics

First Cottages of the Shop Years

The 1984 nomination for the Spencer Historic District counted about 275 dwellings, and about half were modest forms put up in a hurry between 1897 and 1906. Many were one or two stories but only one room deep, stretched back with rear wings. Others had a single floor two rooms deep, with a pair of interior chimneys coming up through a hip or pyramid roof. Where the brick rises through a ceiling, the opening around it lets house air straight into the attic. In a Spencer cottage with two such chimneys, that means two openings to close. Each gets a skirt of thin aluminum, caulked to the brick with a heat-rated sealant, plus a metal dam that holds the insulation back from the masonry. The rear wing gets its own look, since it may sit under a separate roof.

Bungalows Built From About 1915 to 1940

Bungalows took hold in Spencer around 1915, the nomination says, and with the English cottage they led the town's building until about 1940. They clustered west of Hudson Avenue, south of Sixth Street and north along Rowan and Yadkin avenues. Some that the nomination describes rise a story and a half, one of them under a broad side gable. Upstairs, short walls stand where the rafters come down, and behind them are long triangular voids. Air slips through those voids, both behind the short walls and under their floors, and ENERGY STAR flags them as a common leak. We seal and fill those pockets, not only the space over the ceiling.