Attic baffles material
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What’s the best material to use for attic baffles? Cardboard? Polystyrene? Something else? Is it all the same?
Climate zone 5a for reference.
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Will these baffles just be installed down low to the top of the ceiling near your soffit vents or will they be used over the whole roof from the soffit vents up to the ridge vent?
Just down low to keep the insulation out of the eaves and keep the blown in fiberglass from getting wind washed.
Attached a pic of what is currently installed. The installer didn't secure any of the baffles so most have blown downwards. Since they have to go back and fix this, I was wondering if cardboard was a reasonable option and if they should just be replaced with something else like polystyrene. Blown in fiberglass hasn't gone in yet.
It's my understanding that the material isn't critical for an installation such as this.
I like to use either 1/2" polyiso or 1/4" waferboard for this. Waferboard is cheaper (it's basically just really thin OSB), and works fine here as well as allowing for a bit of vapor migration. I use polyiso when I either want some extra R value in the space, or if I happen to have it on hand. Either works fine. 1x2s make excellent spacers to "frame out" the baffles, BTW.
Bill