About Attic & Air
I’m Dana Sorensen, and I’ve spent over a decade voluntarily crawling through the least glamorous parts of houses — attics in July, crawlspaces in January, and behind more air handlers than I can count. It started with my own uncomfortable house and turned into a full-blown obsession with building science. This site is where I write down what all of that taught me about keeping a home comfortable without burning money.
The Question That Started This Site
“Why is the bedroom over the garage always freezing?” I’ve fielded some version of that question from friends, family, and neighbors more times than I can count once they found out I was the person who actually enjoyed talking about insulation at parties, and the honest answer is almost never “buy this gadget.” It’s building science: air sealing before insulation, duct runs that leak a third of your conditioned air into the attic, bath fans venting into the insulation instead of outside. Most advice online skips the why — and without the why, people fix the wrong thing twice.
How I Test and Write
I bring numbers, not vibes. When I write about insulation, I talk about R-value as installed, not as printed on the bag — because a compressed batt or a wind-washed corner doesn’t perform like the label. When I write about ductwork, it’s from years of pressure-testing my own systems and the systems of anyone who’d let me poke around their attic, finding the disconnected boot behind the drywall more times than I’d like to admit. If I recommend a specific baffle, dehumidifier, or attic fan, it’s a model I’ve installed, lived with, or torn out of a ceiling for good reason.
What You’ll Find Here
Attic insulation done right (and the ways it usually goes wrong), ventilation math that actually accounts for your climate, indoor air quality without the purifier hype, and how heating and cooling equipment behaves in a real, imperfect house. I write for homeowners who want to understand their house well enough to make one good decision instead of three expensive ones.
Where I Draw the Line
I’m not an HVAC contractor or a licensed tradesperson — just an enthusiast who’s spent a lot of years in a lot of attics. Some jobs aren’t DIY jobs. Refrigerant, gas lines, and anything at the electrical panel go to a pro, full stop — and when a guide crosses that line, I say so right in the guide.
A note on funding: this site runs ads and some product links are affiliate links, which may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. That never decides what I recommend — plenty of my advice is “don’t buy anything, seal the leak.”
Get In Touch
Question about your own attic mystery, or spotted an error? Contact me here.