Look! In the ceiling! Recessed lights — and garbage cans!

Q: I have several recessed lights that require separation from attic insulation. One suggestion was that I build "little houses" using fireproof rock-wool sheets and cover the cans. Why not use metal wastebaskets as a cover and affix the baskets with Liquid Nails or other adhesive?

Doing nothing isn't good, as the heat escapes via the recessed cans, and the openings in the can allow dirty air from the attic to enter the living space.

A: The garbage-can idea sounds reasonable, but make sure it is large — no girly-man wastebaskets! Make sure your container is bigger than a 5-gallon bucket and made of heat-resistant material (not plastic).

With a large can, I'm not sure why you would bother to affix it; it should stay put under its own weight. Adding weight on the top would help if you have any doubts.

Skipping the glue will make your life, or the poor sap who remodels after you, much easier. Make sure your light bulbs are not too large for the fixture, as heat build-up will be rapid if oversized.

Q: Our 7-year-old house has blown-in, loose insulation in the attic. The house gets really hot in summer. Last year I wanted to install a whole-house attic fan. But I was afraid it would blow insulation around, and my wife wanted air conditioning, so we got AC.

The AC cools the main floor, but unfortunately the upstairs stays very warm. There's an 8- to 10-degree differential between the floors.

The AC contractor blames the heat upstairs on the fact that it's 100-some degrees in the attic. I was thinking of fixing that with an attic vent fan or even a whole-house fan like they have in the South.

Will installing an attic vent fan in one of the gable ends solve the problem?

What about the insulation — will that fan, or a whole-house fan, blow insulation around?

And shouldn't the AC contractor have installed an attic fan as part of the AC installation? Seems to me this should have been part of their thousands-of-dollars installation!

A: If you get a whole-house attic fan, it will help to the point of hardly needing the air conditioning (tell that to the wife), while a gable-mounted attic fan will definitely help reduce your bills and reduce the temperature differential.

Sure, the insulation blows around a little bit with a whole-house fan, but eventually it finds a comfortable spot and stays there. Kind of like teenagers. The amount of insulation blowing around depends on the roof design, power of the fan, type of insulation and the shroud the fan comes with.

You are so dreaming about this air-conditioning contractor putting in an attic fan or whole-house fan! If you believe that he should have included that, you might also believe he should have made you lemonade and fanned you, because after all, keeping you cool and comfortable is part of the job of installing AC, right?!

Darrell Hay is a local home inspector and manages several rental properties.