What you’ll see in the photos is the attic(s) of a 1955 beach bungalow in Ocean County, NJ where the initial structure was a ~25′ x 25′ single bedroom dwelling that was later added on to and the addition’s roof was put over half of the original dwelling roof.

It’s a shallow pitch is nearly impossible for me to reach the soffits unless I lay flat on my stomach on the joists and fully extend my arms.

As you can see, the fiberglass insulation is quite compressed in a lot of bays and some areas are doubled up, others with empty voids.

I have already done a lot of air sealing of the ceiling fixtures and seams I’ve uncovered by moving the insulation aside. There are surely more, but at the soffit side, I suppose I might only be able to seal there if I pull out the soffit from the outside or use an extension on a spray foam gun.

Ultimately, I want to better insulate this. I’ve been in the home for 12 years, my HTP Munchkin 80M boiler is coming up for replacement after 20 years of service and showing signs of the HX starting to leak with no available part replacement.

Given the difficulty in accessing the far reaches of the bays at the soffit sides, I’m questioning whether or not replacement bats is sensible or just go blown-in cellulose. I would aim to get as much in there as possible, getting as close to R48 as possible, or R60 if the cost:comfort is sensible for this structure.

FYI – I’ve been in this attic frequently recently due to mouse activity. Hence the Contrac baits you see strewn about. I finally could the single mouse offender last weekend, but I’m sure this will be a perpetual issue until when or if I can more comprehensively seal up the base of the foundation to sill plate.

So, I’m not sure how best to address this…

I welcome your insight and anyone who has had similar experiences with these old bungalows.

FYI – the bungalow also has a 2010 2-story addition tacked onto it. The bare drywall you see in the first photo is the back wall of the 2nd-floor closet. Yep, it needs to have a hole plugged that was used for Cat5, that I removed and obviously needs insulating. All the wiring for the bungalow there is connected to a sub-panel that is also in the 2nd-story addition. It’s a bit of a hot mess.

I did install rigid ducting with mastic and insulation for the two bungalow bathroom fans and spray foam sealed the enclosures/seams to ceiling.

The PVC piping seems to be venting from the vented crawl space.

And, you can see the lovely cut through the old roof to the addition side of the attic that I have to squeeze through on my belly to get into.

The attic hatch is 2′ x 2′ piece of ~1/8″ thick Luan sitting on trim. Yep, needs a revamp with thicker board, insulation and weatherstripping.