Insulation Before & After in West Hollywood, CA
You can read about R-values and air sealing all day, but nothing beats seeing what twenty-five years of attic work actually looks like. Here are real project snapshots from around West Hollywood, the Fairfax District, and Miracle Mile: what we found, what we did, and what changed. Every job below came with the same Done Right Promise: if it’s not done right, we make it right. No fine print, no runaround.
Recent Transformations
Compacted Attic Insulation Removal & Replacement in West Hollywood
This 1920s Spanish-style home off Santa Monica Boulevard had original insulation that had settled to about three inches, and what was left was doing almost nothing. The homeowner’s upstairs bedroom ran twelve degrees warmer than the rest of the house every summer afternoon. We removed the old material, air sealed every ceiling penetration we could reach, and blew in Owens Corning fiberglass to a full R-38. The upstairs temperature evened out within a week, and their July electric bill dropped noticeably.
Spray Foam Insulation for a Hot, Half-Finished Attic in the Fairfax District
The attic in this Fairfax District bungalow was usable space, but it was unusable in August. The homeowner wanted to store records up there without them warping, and the open rafter bays were letting heat pour straight through the roof. We applied Icynene open-cell spray foam directly to the underside of the roof deck, turning the attic into conditioned space. The room went from 105 degrees to within five degrees of the rest of the house, and the records stayed flat all summer.
Rodent Proofing and Attic Cleaning in Miracle Mile
A Miracle Mile homeowner called us because she kept hearing scratching above her bedroom at 3 a.m. Turns out rats had been using an unsealed vent as a front door, and the attic had become a latrine. We removed the contaminated insulation, sanitized the entire deck, sealed every entry point we could find, and blew in fresh Johns Manville fiberglass. She hasn’t heard a sound since, and for the first time in years she’s not worried about what’s living above her ceiling.
Crawl Space Encapsulation and Vapor Barrier in West Hollywood Flats
The West Hollywood Flats have older homes built close to the ground, and this one had a dirt crawl space that was making the whole house smell like a basement. Moisture was rising through the floorboards, and the hardwood was starting to cup. We installed a heavy-duty vapor barrier across the entire crawl space floor, ran it up the foundation walls, and sealed every seam. The musty smell was gone within days, and the floors are no longer moving with the seasons.
Radiant Barrier Installation for a Flat Roof in West Hollywood
Flat roofs are common in mid-century West Hollywood apartment buildings, and they cook in direct sun. This small four-unit building had tenants on the top floor running portable AC units constantly, and the property owner was paying for it in complaints and common-area electricity. We stapled a reflective radiant barrier to the underside of the roof structure, leaving an air gap that reflects heat before it can press down into the units. Top-floor temperatures came down enough that two tenants unplugged their portable units entirely by late June.
Wall Insulation Retrofit in a Stucco Home off Melrose
This stucco home off Melrose looked fine from the outside, but the walls were hollow. The homeowner was running the heat all winter and still couldn’t get the living room warm, because the heat was leaking straight through the plaster. We drilled small access holes through the exterior, dense-packed GreenFiber cellulose into every stud bay, and patched the holes with color-matched stucco. The heating system now cycles for half as long, and you can’t tell we were ever there from the curb.
Want Results Like These?
These aren’t stock photos or some other company’s work. They’re the kind of jobs we do every week in West Hollywood, and yours will get the same treatment: real materials from Owens Corning, Rockwool, Icynene, and the rest, installed by background-checked technicians, backed by the Done Right Promise for life. Call (213) 527-4062 and talk to a live person, any hour. Free second opinions on written estimates, no trip charge inside the county, and 10% off for seniors and veterans, always.
Written by Walt Brenner, Owner at Walt’s Insulation, serving West Hollywood since 2000.