What’s Above You?

Fiberglass Awareness

An attic with gray blown in insluation with pully wires that old up the chandeliers below.

You walk into a beautiful historic home, hotel, bed and breakfast, movie theater, store or museum. Down below everything looks exquisite, even when you look up at the ceiling and the hanging elegant chandeliers. But what’s above that ceiling? What you might find will not only surprise you, but creep you out.

An attic with gray blown in insulation with wood boards and wires going into the floor to the ceiling below.

Vented out of the roof, gable or soffit vents into the outside air we all breathe is more times than not fiberglass. Invisible to the naked eye, it goes down the lungs and enters the blood stream where it does what foreign toxic matter does to a body. Notice the wires going down into the floor creating a situation where the blown in insulation could get into the air in the rooms below.

A view from across an attic with gray blown in insulation and yellow fiberglass batts with a cat walk leading to a gable vent at the end. There are wires hanging from the wood beams.

This attic has not only blown in loose insulation, but fiberglass batts, which also shatter and float around in small particles. Notice the vent at the end of the catwalk which is opened to the outside. The next time you walk past a building or home, look up and spot the attic vent and be aware of what type of toxic matter could be coming out into the air you are breathing in. Sometimes the air has a smell to it, sometimes it does not, or it does and you are just not intune to it.

Pink fiberglass batts in-between the rafters up in an attic of a house with wires an an outlet.

Fiberglass batts lined above the ceiling panels in an office.

Fiberglass batts lined in an attic of a home.

Pink fiberglass batts in-between the rafters up in an attic of a house with wires and an old cat crate laying off to one end.

Fiberglass batts lined in an attic of a home.

12 inch batts of pink fiberglass insulation said to be rated at R 30 laying up in an attic vented to the outside.

12 inch batts of pink fiberglass insulation laying up in an attic with a gable venting it to the outside of the home.

Gray blown in insulation next to a brick outer wall with wood beams and wires running around and under it.

Blown in loose gray insulation with yellow fiberglass batts laying in it.

A cat walk in an attic that has yellow fiberglass batts and gray blown in insulation.

What is coming out of the houses and buildings near your own home? What's in your attic?"

Sharon Maguire - Updated 1-27-2017