All PostsWater Dripping From Attic Door?

You're working away in your office on a beautiful spring day when all of a sudden you hear this drip, drip, drip from the attic hatch in the room. 

"What the heck is going on??"

Perhaps your first thought is that it must just be snow in your attic melting. You know, snow that somehow blew in through the soffit vents and filled your attic...

No, that doesn't make much sense when you think about it.

You Google what it could be and a lot of suggestions say it is likely "Attic Rain". There isn't really anything you can do about it except hire an electrician/insulator/roofer and make sure that there aren't any holes in the vapour barrier. Places like pot lights and vents are the first places to look. If those are all good then it could mean you need a new roof! 

Okay so after hiring all of the pros and sealing any tiny little holes in the vapour barrier around pot lights, you hope that you won't have to worry about this issue ever again.

Except next spring it happens again!

So what is happening?

Well...while the vapour barrier experts like to focus so much on the small, indiscriminate breaks in the vapour barrier, there is one GIANT break that is continuously overlooked.

The Attic Hatch!

The conventional design of the attic hatch means that there is roughly a 2' x 2' break in the vapour barrier! You most likely have a heavy door (made of MDF or Plywood), with some sort of rigid insulation in or on it, and that door just relies on gravity to sit on a little weatherstrip seal on the frame of the hatch.

There is no part of this design that works to "maintain the vapour barrier". 

The problem with this outdated conventional design is that the door relies on gravity to seal. That weatherstripping then needs to be soft enough that it will compress under the weight of the door but that means it is usually so soft that it is compressing flat in one spot or another to the point that it is not providing a seal that prevents air flow into the attic.

If there is even one corner of the attic hatch that weather stripping is over compressed, warm air can flow into the attic from the interior of the house. When that warm air meets the cold attic air in the attic hatch, frost forms!

Over an entire cold winter, a lot of frost can form in that hatch!

Come spring time when we get that first really good warm day, all of that frost can melt. If there is enough of it, you would certainly be getting actual water dripping from the hatch.

Okay so now that we know what the true cause of that water dripping is, how do we fix a leaking attic hatch?

The solution is rethinking the conventional attic hatch. We need a hatch that will support a continual vapour barrier. It most likely needs to be completely sealed up so that air has no chance at all of escaping into the attic. And for goodness sake can we all get on board with insulating the hatch to the same R-Value as the rest of the attic?

Introducing the Tru-Seal Attic Hatch. 

This attic hatch completely challenges that old design. It is fastened on from underneath and in order to gain access you unscrew the screws and pull the door down into the attic rather than pushing it into the attic.

It includes a high quality rubber gasket seal which compresses and forms a really tight seal but also bounces back year after year so you know that over time you won't be worrying about any overly compressed spots in the hatch.

By screwing the door on, we can now friction fit batt insulation into the attic to the same R-Value as the rest of the attic. This is major because with the conventional design there is absolutely no way of doing that. 

Did we mention that because the door is screwed on (consistently all the way around the door) we now maintain the vapour barrier across the ceiling?!

This new attic access design solves the decades old problem of a leaking attic hatch. We are eliminating the risk of air flow into the attic which causes frost buildup over the winter and melting frost in the spring. The homeowner saves on heating costs in the winter and, to boot, the hatch is pre-finished with a beautiful PVC Brickmould framed door that is much more discreet than the bulky wooden doors.

The best part...Tru-Seal Attic Hatch is available in custom sizes with daily turnaround rates. You can easily replace your faulty hatch yourself (no need to spend more money on another tradesperson). 

For less than $200.00 (Shipping included, price may change depending on the size of the hatch), you can finally resolve this issue once and for all and be the hero your partner has been looking for that finally stopped that dripping water from the hatch in your walk in closet. 

For more information, visit our Tru-Seal Attic Hatch heading.