R-30 Insulation for Dummy Homeowners

Installing attic insulation

We aren't quite sure what's going on over at the Leaf Group, but it appears that the company has hired a cadre of out-of-work J-school grads to "freshen" their content. Whatever the case, we keep running across rewrites of perfectly good content (and sometimes not so perfect); rewrites cobbled together by freelancer who apparently know even less about the topic at hand than the original author. Take today's DotD nominee, Meg Atteberry, asked to tell people "How Thick Is R30 Ceiling Insulation?" at HomeSteady.com.

Atteberry pumped out more than 750 words to tell her readers that R-30 insulation batts are 9½ to 10 inches thick. In the process, she mentioned three times that properly insulated ceilings reduce your energy bills. She also mentioned three times that R-30 is the recommended minimum thickness of ceiling insulation. We supposed that's one way to pad your prose...

Of course, the original by David Miller had its own problems, chief among which was the suggestion that ceiling joists are "2-foot-by-10-foot"¹ boards; that and the suggestion that insulation batts have a "light, corrugated backing board."² Meg reworded some site's information about blown-in insulation (rarely used in attics), padded her word count with a paragraph on spray foam insulation (ditto) and blathered about how rigid foam insulation isn't used in ceilings. Way to pump up that word count, Meg... Atteberry's attempt to reword Miller's original ended up with some problems, however, most resulting from her obvious ignorance of insulation, ceilings, building, construction, and the like – a rather odd deficiency for someone claiming to have a degree in architecture... Whatever the case, Meg attempted to inform her readers, telling them,

"When most people think of insulation, they picture the pink, fluffy batts... Typically, there are only two widths, 16 inches , and 24 inches . [sic] These widths reflect the typical spacing of framing members in a wall."

Batts are not 16 and 24 inches wide, they're 15 and 23 inches wide, slightly more than the 14½-inch typical spacing between framing members in a ceiling to allow for warped joists. The kraft paper backing is 16 inches wide to allow for stapling to the wood.

"...the actual space between the framing members will be less than 16 or 24 inches , but the foam batts can easily be stuffed between these lengths."

That's not "foam," and they call that space "width," Meg, not "length"...
For ignorance, for endless repetition, repetitiveness, redundancy, and saying the same thing over and over, we do hereby name Ms. Atteberry our Dumbass of the Day.

¹ They're not; some are nominal 2-by-10s, which are 1½" by 9¼"
² They're not; some are backed with kraft paper and others have no backing

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