Insulation

Insulation in your home resists heat flow, heat going out in the winter, and heat coming in during the summer. The more insulation you have in your home the easier it is to keep your home warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

Think of your home as a large thermos bottle. If you put ice water in the thermos bottle it stays cold and if you put hot coffee in the thermos bottle it stays hot. So the same thing happens with your home.

So if your home does not have enough insulation the heat lost in the winter must be replaced by your heating system and the heat gained in the summer must be removed by your cooling system. And the resulting higher power bills must be paid by you!!

Unless your home was especially built for energy efficiency, you can usually add more insulation and reduce you energy bills. To determine whether you should add insulation, you will have to find out how much insulation you already have.

You could hire a qualified home energy auditor who will check your insulation as part of the energy audit. Some power companies will provide an energy audit for their customers for free or a minimal charge. Give your power company a call or check out their web page to see what they can do for you.

If you don’t want an energy audit and you’re the do-it-your-self type person, you’ll need to inspect the insulation yourself.

Inspecting and Evaluating Your Insulation

• Check out your attic, walls and floors next to an unheated or uncooled space, like your garage or basement. You can usually see the insulation in the exposed structure. You should be able to see the type of insulation and measure its thickness.

  
  
  

  

  
  
  
• Inspect your exterior walls by looking around your electrical outlets:

  1. First!!!! Turn off the power to that outlet at the circuit breaker.

  2. Remove the outlet cover and shine a flashlight into the crack around the outlet box. You should be able to see if there is any insulation and maybe how thick it is.

  3. Pull out a small amount if you don’t know what kind it is, you can show it to an expert at your local home supply store.

  4. Check out the outlets on your first floors and upper floors, if any, and in old and new parts of your home. Just because you find insulation in one wall doesn’t mean that it’s everywhere in your home.

  Once you’ve determined the type of insulation and how much you have you can then decide if you need to add insulation.

• Rolls and batts or blankets - These are flexible mineral fibers, such as fiberglass and rock wool. They are available in rolls or batts with R-values of R-13 to R-21. A batt is a precut section of insulation.
  
  
• Loose-fill insulation - this type of insulation is made up of fiberglass, rock wook, or cellulose. They are usually blown into spaces using special air-driven equipment. When the insulation is blown in it takes the shape of the building walls and attics. So this is great for older homes or places where installing other types would be very difficult.
  
  
• Rigid foam insulation - This type of insulation can be very effective with R-values twice as great as the other types of insulation. However it is usually more expensive but is great for homes with space limitations and where high R-values are needed.
  
  
• Foam-in-place insulation - This type of insulation can be sprayed into walls and helps to reduce air leakage and has very good R-values. It can also be sprayed around widow and door frames.
  
  

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