Picked up 48 rolls of R-25 from Menards last night to put on top of the R-19 already laid in the 2x6 joists of an attic. Had already paid for it (got a really good deal) and was just getting what was on my pickup ticket. Was very annoyed to find all of their stock was 1.5-2.5 years old. Normally, I would have passed it up, but it was already paid for and I needed it soon. Got it home and found exactly what I was concerned about: the compressed rolls don't come out anywhere near their intended thickness. Package says 8.5" thick, and they roll out maybe 2-3" thick. Wouldn't even fill a 2x4 wall. Manually fluffing them up maybe gets to a somewhat stable 6-7" and I'm not convinced it'll stay that thick. Does anyone have any tricks or advice here? Clever ways to get it to recover to full thickness? I could return it, but I got it at such a great price that I would cringe at buying something else. I'd probably never earn back the cost difference on heating and cooling, and I could double-layer the R-25 much cheaper than I could buy R-30.

Hello, thank you in advance for looking over my questions. We recently moved onto an inland lake in the Fox Valley, near Appleton, Wisconsin. The climate here is upper Midwestern: summer days in 80s and sometimes 90s with medium humidity; winters in 20s and 10s and sometimes colder, with moderate levels of snowfall. The spring brings a fair amount of rain, but it usually dries out between storms (it's not always overcast and gloomy like some locations). I'm providing this climate info because I think it's important for my questions. We have a "boat house" about four steps above the dock. We call it a boat house but I don't think it ever actually held a boat because it's too small and too high above the shore. It's basically a concrete shed built into the hill. The floor & ceiling, and the left, right & back walls are concrete that was poured into forms (not cinder block). The front is a 2x4 framed wood wall with a single door in the middle. There is a deck on top and a wooden deck in front of the shed. Our house was built in 1949, and I'm guessing the shed was built in the 1960s or 1970s, not sure. The shed is not all that big. It's about 12' wide by 10' deep inside. The height is pretty good, maybe 6' 2" or so. Most of the walls and ceiling have foam insulation board mounted on them. I am installing a propane RV heater which will be used only when we are down there in the winter. The heater draws outside combustion air and exhausts outside. I'm setting up the shed as a place to hang out while we're ice fishing near the dock, and I want to put something over the concrete floor. The wooden deck boards extend into the shed about 42" or so. They aren't all the same length, so I might cut them to a common length. I will leave like 36" length. I considered cutting them back to the inside of the front wall, but based on the slope of the old construction, I think it might lead to water coming into the shed. Where the boards end, they are elevated maybe 1/4" above the floor, and then the boards are about 3/4" thick, so moving from the shed toward the door there is a step up of maybe 1". So what is left beyond these boards is a floor area of about 7' x 12' that is bare concrete. What I am considering doing is laying down heavy foam insulation board to nearly match the step up to the boards, and then cover the whole thing with a 10' x 12' piece of outdoor carpet. My concern (and the reason for my long-winded thread) is... MOLD! I don't want to get mold between the floor and the insulation board, or between the insulation board and the carpet, or just in the carpet. I understand a bit about mold, and that to avoid it you need to avoid the conditions it likes to grow in. The shed is generally dark inside. I'll be adding a small window but that won't change much. In the summer, people walking in and out (to make a Bloody Mary or grab a beer) will be making the carpet wet. It will be hot in the shed in the summer. In the winter, the shed will be cold but when we do go ice fishing, it'll get warmed up to maybe 60 deg for like 12 hours, which should help dry things out. With all of this, it sounds to me like I'll end up with mold. I'm thinking the other two parameters are ventilation and chemicals. The shed has an air vent and has electrical power. I could add some sort of ventilation fan to move air through it on a timer or all the time. Plus maybe a small fan blowing across the floor? Are there any easy treatments to avoid mold, like maybe insulation board that is mold-resistant (but won't kill us from sitting in there)? Or outdoor carpets that are mold-resistant? Can you recommend any products? I'm guessing the right answer is to thoroughly clean the floor concrete and up the walls a bit and then seal them with a good quality concrete paint. But it's already too cold here to do that for the season, and I'm getting too old to be working on my knees. So I'm hoping this isn't the only solution. I'm guessing someone on here has experience with this, and I would greatly appreciate hearing from you. Sorry about the long post, but without details we'd just go down a bunch of unrelated rabbit holes. :)