DW and I have just purchased our first house, which is going to be fantastic for us in the long run. However, there are a few things that I need to do to it over the next few months to make it truly perfect.
1. I know that I need to add insulation to the attic. It has some standard batt insulation, but so far the house has seemed extremely hard to heat and is probably very leaky. When we moved in, there was a 2x2 attic access in the master closet that only had a piece of drywall to cover it >.< For those who have sealed up attics before, is it easy enough to do with a caulk gun and a few cans of expanding spray foam? I'm trying to avoid doing a full spray foam layer of insulation due to the cost. Cellulose will be going over the original batts once I've sealed up the air leaks.
2. Related above, would the fact that the upstairs rooms in the house are colder than the downstairs rooms be evidence of terrible insulation above these rooms? It's the first house I've ever been in where this is the case.
3. The lights are a mix of old incandescents and a few CFL's. Is it worth it to go around and replace/throw out every incandescent now (with LED's most likely), or do that to only the most used rooms (kitchen, shower room, dining room) and rotate the old lights through the less used rooms until the burn out?
4. The house came with a fancy insulated garage door, which is fantastic right now considering how cold it has been. However, there is a lower attic that only covers this garage and the living room directly behind it. Is it worth while to fully insulate this entire attic, or just the part over the living room? I'm leaning toward full attic because I plan on using the garage as a gym and workshop, so keeping it a bit more even tempered year round sounds nice. I just didn't know if going R40+ in the attic has much point if the door is ~R15 or so at most (there are no markings to tell me. It's got about 1" of hard foam insulation on it)
Thanks for any suggestions or insights :)