Even a good home inspector would have missed this.

I'm the third owner of a 30+ year old house.   I've been working on its energy efficiency since 2005.

Part of the attic is unfloored and has loose fill insulation at a depth between a trace and about 5 inches, not the R30 recommended for the area.

I pulled up the attic flooring over the family room and found it had loose fill (where it had anything).   I added unfaced R30 fiberglass insulation (moving the loose fill as needed to even it out).

Over the master bedroom and entryway, the entire attic area is floored and this is what I found under the flooring.

Notice anything odd about the end of the insulation batt?

It's rounded, not cut square.

Surprise!!

The insulation is R13 (3 1/2 inches) wih the ends turned down to make it fill the space.

I'll be reworking the faced R13 and adding unfaced to bring the total to R30, along with adding R30 in the empty spaces

The previous owner commented about their utility bills, but I have found that much of their problem was a lack of sealing and insulation, not just the30 year old gas-fired furnace.

- caulking
- - The worst?   Some 1/2" gaps in the siding around the bay window in the kitchen.   The windows I could reach (I'm not going up a 35 foot ladder) had not been caulked on the outside in years.

- weatherstripping
- - The double doors leading to the porch had no weatherstrip between them (like having a brick-sized hole in the wall).   $2 of weatherstripping warmed that end of the room 10° F.
- - The garage door in the basement had no weatherstrip on the top or sides.   $20 of weatherstripping raised the temperature of that end of the basement 10° F.
- - The access panel to the heat and A/C on the third floor had no weatherstripping.

- insulation
- - Single pane windows and no storm windows.   Adding caulking, weatherstripping, and installing $300 of storm windows on the lower level dropped the month-to-month heating cost by $90.

I expect the added insulation to give improvement in evenness of wartmth in the house, as well as some savings on heating and cooling.

It took a little longer to get the $$$$ to replace all the windows with vinyl sash double pane but it made the entire house more comfortable.