CertainTeed Home Energy Audit Nationwide

CertainTeed Home Energy Audit in Chicago: What to Know First

We run independent CertainTeed home energy audits across Chicago. A full audit, including blower-door testing and thermal imaging, takes about two to three hours on site, and you’ll leave the appointment with a printed report showing exactly where your CertainTeed insulation is underperforming and what it costs to correct. Most Chicago homeowners pay between $300 and $495 for the diagnostic work, regardless of whether they hire us for the fix afterward.

Call (218) 261-7714

This page is for homeowners who bought CertainTeed insulation, or inherited it when they bought the house, and want to know whether it’s actually doing the job. If you have drafty rooms, wildly uneven temperatures between floors, or heating bills that don’t match your home’s size, call (218) 261-7714. We’ll schedule the audit and walk you through everything with numbers, not adjectives.

How CertainTeed Products Fail - and How We Fix Them

CertainTeed makes solid insulation products, but in Chicago’s climate they fail in patterns we’ve learned to recognize. Here’s what we find on audit after audit.

• Settled fiberglass batts in exterior walls. CertainTeed’s R-13 and R-15 fiberglass batts are staples in Chicago construction, but they settle over time, especially when installed against masonry in older brick bungalows. We routinely find a 2 to 3 inch gap at the top of wall cavities on the thermal camera. The fix is dense-pack cellulose or injection foam in the void, not tearing out drywall.
• Moisture-darkened CertainTeed batt insulation in attic floors. If air leaks from the living space below, Chicago’s winter condensation soaks the batts. CertainTeed fiberglass loses R-value when wet, and the paper facing can hold moisture against the drywall. We seal the top plates and penetrations first, then replace or top off the attic insulation.
• CertainTeed foam board with failed or missing seams. CertainTeed’s Foamular XPS is common on rim joists and basement walls in Chicago homes. When the seams aren’t taped or foamed, the board still insulates but air moves around it. An audit with a blower door and infrared camera shows cold lines at every joint. We pull the board where needed, air seal, and reinstall or replace it.
• Compressed batts under flooring and around can lights. In finished attics and knee walls, CertainTeed batts get stuffed into spaces they don’t fit. Compression cuts R-value by a third or more. We see it constantly in Chicago second-story additions. The fix is usually air sealing plus spray foam or loose-fill in the irregular cavities.
• Vented attics with CertainTeed insulation blown over unsealed penetrations. This is the one we see most. A previous contractor blows CertainTeed InsulSafe or OPTIMA loose-fill over an attic floor that was never air sealed. The insulation hides the problem but doesn’t stop conditioned air from leaving the house. Our audit includes a pre-work blower-door reading so you can see the leak rate before we seal anything.

Our CertainTeed Home Energy Audit Process

1. 1
   Call and schedule. A live person answers at (218) 261-7714, any hour. You’ll get a confirmed appointment window and a text when the technician is on the way.
2. 2
   Walkthrough and questions. Wes Okafor or one of our technicians walks the house with you, looking at the attic hatch, crawl space, rim joists, and any visible CertainTeed product. We ask about comfort complaints first, not square footage.
3. 3
   Blower-door test. We mount the calibrated fan in an exterior door and depressurize the house to measure total air leakage in CFM50 and ACH50. This is one number that tells you how leaky the envelope is.
4. 4
   Thermal imaging and visual inspection. With the house depressurized, outside air pours through every gap. The infrared camera sees it in real time. We photograph and log every finding.
5. 5
   Duct leakage test where applicable. If the ducts run through unconditioned space, we test them. CertainTeed insulation in the attic doesn’t matter if the ducts are leaking 20% of your conditioned air.
6. 6
   Written report and scope. Before we leave, you get a printed report: pre-audit ACH50, thermal images, leak locations, and a written price for any air sealing or insulation work we recommend. No one starts work without that written scope, and the price on it is the price you pay.

What CertainTeed Home Energy Audit Costs in Chicago

Our audit itself runs $300 to $495 for a typical Chicago single-family home or two-flat, depending on square footage and number of zones. That covers the blower-door test, thermal imaging, duct leakage testing where applicable, and the printed report you keep.

The audit fee is credited toward any work we do afterward. If you bring us a competing written estimate for insulation work, we’ll read it with you and tell you what’s actually in it. That’s free, whether you hire us or not.

Why Chicago Homeowners Call Topside Attic Insulation for CertainTeed Work

We’ve sealed and insulated over 9,000 Chicago homes since 2016, and we’ve never blown insulation over an unsealed attic floor. Sealing comes first, every time. After the work is done, we run the blower door again and give you both numbers: before and after. A typical Chicago bungalow might read 3,800 CFM50 before we start and 1,900 after. That’s the performance change you paid for, printed on the report.

Every job starts with a written price and a written scope before anyone lifts a tool. Every job ends with a Documented Photo Record showing every air-sealed penetration and installed R-value by zone. If anything isn’t right in the first year, the 365-Day Done Right Promise applies. Wes Okafor grew up on the Northwest Side and has been doing insulation work in Chicago for over twenty years. When he says a flue chase in a Portage Park attic is leaking like a chimney, he means it literally. And we also service Reflectix radiant barrier alongside CertainTeed, so there’s no brand lock-in on recommendations.

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