A few weeks ago a friend mentioned to me that he had noticed a upward draft through the light cans in the ceiling of his house when he was changing a bulb. I went over there soon after when the wind was gusting to about 20 mph ouside. We took a smoke stick up near the cans over the kitchen counter and I couldn’t believe the upward draft. The house is a two story about 17 years old. Since there was attic space above the cans, we looking into the cost of replacing the cans with air tight models, also known as zero-clearance cans because you can pack in the insulation right up the can.
Replacing all the cans (17 of them) was going to be a beast of a job. At HD we noticed that there are available retrofit inards for the cans which create nearly a completly sealed unit. I was concerned that with heat build-up in the can, that the thermal switch would trigger and blink the lights on-and-off. We installed five of the retrofit kits and left the lights on for more than an hour to see if the thermal switch would trigger, but it did not.
We retrofitted the rest of the cans and the amount of air loss that we stopped was amazing. We kind of figure that between the 17 cans, they leaked as much conditioned air into the attic as a 10inch open round duct.
I’m going to be interested to see how much his heating bill is lowered this winter. The retro fits ran about $9 each and took less than five minutes each to install. The HD brand were about $5 each less than the “name” brand which they also had, and seemed to seal just as well. They are both made in China.
Dennis
Edited 9/21/2007 6:14 pm ET by djohan
Replies
so, these retrofit cans fit inside the existing cans?
"Since there was attic space above the cans, we looking into the cost of replacing the cans with air tight models, also known as zero-clearance cans because you can pack in the insulation right up the can."
Those are two different things.
IC - insulation contact. You can insulation right upto and over the can without it overheating. None IC types you need to keep it 3" away.
But they can still leak air.
AT - air tight. In some cases that is limited to specific trim rings.
AFAIK all AT cans are ATIC types.
While I am familar with Old Work or Remodel cans I have never heard of refitings the guts to make them ATIC. I will have to look for those.
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
i've seen those and wondered how they work. i think your 10" hole is probabaly a little small for air leakage,cans are terrible for energy loss. i bought airtight for my house and that is a big strech of the imagination.i sat down and siliconed all the air leaks they had before i installed.
if you have trouble with the lights going out try cfl's they will run much cooler and solve your problem.larry
hand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.