[masraum]

A few years back, the missus scoured Angie's list for contractors and contacted 3-5 for quotes of various stuff. The quotes for blown in insulation, plus tunnels that went out by the edges of the roof to make sure the air from the soffit venting wasn't blocked and in some cases, vents that ran all of the way up the underside of the roof and/or the heat block paint were, IIRC $650-950. The house was 1950sqft, but a 2 story, so probably 900-950' of roof space. We also got extra quotes for solar powered attic fans.

I didn't like the idea of the blown in insulation for several reasons, the main reason being it would suck if I ever had to get up there and they indiscriminatelyspray that crap everywhere. I ended up spending about $450 on some insulation from lowes. It was R25 and was in a tube of the thin plastic (but perforated). Because of the plastic, it was pretty much a breeze to install (other than being darn hot and tight in our attic). I think we had made the cost of the stuff back in less than a year (I kept a spreadsheet of our bills, and saw some months that were as much as $100 cheaper). It was 2 days of my time crawling around in the attic sweating like a pig, but I was happy with the job and would do it again. Hell, I wish I'd done it years ago, and had decided to do it in Feb or Mar instead of May.

I would happily use an insulation place, but I would never use a big box place. We used them years and years ago for our garage doors. They did a total crap job. They set up the sensors incorrectly (2 doors side by side need the sensors installed a specific way). They didn't adjust the doors for the pressure sensors to work correctly which caused some issues over the years and was nearly a pain when we sold. Using them was definitely a mistake. I figured "how bad could they screw it up, it's just garage doors". Yeah, I was very naive!