Insulating my own attic

[puglogic]

I'd like to do some sealing, caulking and addition of insulation in our attic. We don't really have $1500 to do the repairs recommended by an energy audit last year, but I'd like to do what I can until we CAN afford a professional.

I'm out of the loop in terms of the best DIY web sites and video sources -- I think I'd like to watch how other people do it, then bite off the task a couple of hours at a pop. Where would you go if you wanted to learn a home improvement skill like this?

[SteveinMN]

I'd watch a bunch of YouTube videos. Maybe try eHow (http://www.ehow.com/search.html?s=insulate+attic&skin=corporate&t=all); I've found the information on that site reliable in multiple disciplines. Those would be my top two.

There's DoItYourself.com (http://www.doityourself.com/), though I've never tried it and the Web site loads a bakery full of cookies. Or DIYHomeRepair (http://www.google.com/custom?domains=DIYHomeRepair.com&q=insulate+attic&sitesearch=DIYHomeRepair.com&sa=Search&client=pub-6673017971441198&forid=1&channel=3913142619&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&safe=active&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23FFC600%3B VLC%3A663399%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFE564%3BLBGC%3 A336699%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A000000% 3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BFORID%3A1%3B&hl=en); no experience with that one, either, though it seems to have a number of helpful articles/videos. Whatever the choice, I'd try to watch more than one video. Everyone posting has their preferences and biases and it's hard to identify the gotchas that don't appear in a video. At least in watching several you have a better chance of seeing situations which you may encounter yourself.

[Gardenarian]

Here's an article from "This Old House": Read This Before You Insulate Your Attic (http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20645175,00.html)

[fidgiegirl]

I agree with all the sources. The trick with YouTube is to watch more than one vid, and to also look at the comments. We found one shower tiling video that had such contradictory comments that we knew it couldn't quite be right. The videos that did things correctly still might have had one or two comments against their methods, but nothing like this one. So imagine if that had been the only vid we'd watched, and we'd done it that way. Eek.