Collegedale is a young city by local standards, built up around Southern Adventist University and the McKee Foods bakery along Apison Pike. Most of its houses are less than twenty-five years old, which changes what insulation work looks like.
Tell us what's happening at the Collegedale property and we'll come take a look.
Census Bureau American Community Survey estimates put Collegedale's median year built at about 2005, with roughly six in ten homes constructed since 2000 and fewer than one in five predating 1980. That is the newest housing profile of any city in the county. Neighborhoods off Apison Pike, Edgmon Road and Little Debbie Parkway are mostly 2000s and 2010s two-story homes and townhomes, with a smaller stock of 1960s and 1970s houses near the university and the original town center.
For insulation, newer does not mean finished. Homes from the 2000s were built to energy codes that have since tightened, and even homes built to today's code often have unconditioned attics full of ductwork, bonus rooms over garages, and vented crawl spaces on the sloped lots. Collegedale sits in the Wolftever Creek watershed, and the low lots along the creek and its branches carry the same damp-crawl-space issues as anywhere else in the valley.
Collegedale has a noticeable share of townhomes and attached housing serving the university and the bakery workforce. Attached housing has a specific insulation weak point: the top of the party wall, where the wall meets the roof and the attic of one unit connects to the attic of the next through gaps in the fire blocking. Air, sound and sometimes odor travel through those gaps.
Spray foam is the right tool for sealing the top of a party wall and the rim area at the floor line. Combined with air sealing of the attic floor and insulation to depth, it tightens a townhome's envelope in the two places batts cannot reach.
Most Collegedale attics were built with blown insulation over a leaky ceiling plane and ducts in the attic. Sealing the penetrations and bringing the depth to R-38 is the straightforward job; foaming the roof deck to bring the ducts inside is the more thorough one. On the crawl spaces, encapsulation with closed-cell foam on the walls and rim joist and a sealed vapor barrier is the standard.
The older homes around the university, from the 1960s and 1970s, are ranches on block crawl spaces with minimal attic insulation, and they get the same treatment as the older stock elsewhere in the county. Collegedale is served by EPB, so the EPB and TVA EnergyRight rebates for attic insulation and air sealing may apply, and the city has its own building department for permits.
Collegedale is part of our the Tennessee Valley service area. Free on-site estimates, no obligation.
Tell us what the house is doing and where. We will come look, measure and write a scope you can compare.
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