To help with heating and cooling our house, we insulated over our hideaway attic stairs by making a box type frame out of Styrofoam insulation to fit over the stairs opening. To make it sturdy, we doubled the thickness of the one-half inch insulation by sandwiching the pieces together. After getting the pieces cut out, we used duct tape to put it all together. When I want to go up into the attic, I just turn it over on the side out of the way. We did this during the winter months and immediately could tell a difference in our heating and I do believe it is going to make a big difference in cooling our house this summer as well.
Update on our insulated hideaway stairs device. Comparing our 2008 electric bills to 2006 and 2007 for the months of May, June and July there has been a big decrease in the wattage usage. Like we thought, insulating over our hideaway stairs is going to be a savings for us during the summer months as well as the winter months.
We have discovered that duct tape does not hold up well under extreme heat so we will be replacing the duct tape on the outside portion of the box with some heat resistant tape.
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