What is Home Insulation and what purpose it serves?
The house enclosure is what separates the uncontrolled environment (outside) from the controlled environment (inside), those walls that surround you and that roof thing that goes over your head. The fine layer in between the outside and inside is where insulation lives.
The primary job of insulation is to slow heat flow from room to room in your house and of course, you want to slow this movement of heat and capture it in one place to keep the temperature the same throughout. On the contrary, constantly moving air will cause an uneven temperature throughout your house.
The heat will always flow from warm to cold until it matches the coldest place in your home, for example when hot air sinks to your basement and you are wondering where all the heat is. It has been running all day but for some reason the floors and rooms in your home are cold, that is the “convection” of heat. A major concern is air leakage for most homes simply because of their size. There is a lot of room for error when it comes to air leaking out and into your home during the winter.
The Benefits of Home Insulation
Insulating your home can seem like a hassle and can carry an enormous expense. A properly installed and designed insulation system offers long-term and immediate benefits. But what exactly, are the benefits of insulation? There are actually a number of advantages of installing spray foam insulation, cellulose, or any other kind of insulation.
The benefits of home insulation range from making your home more comfortable to helping reduce your energy bills. Insulation also offers environmental benefits. However there are options suitable for any situation, here are some benefits that come with insulating your home properly:
Increases Comfort
Those painful mornings when you just don’t want to get out of bed because it is so cold or the floors in your home are so cold you can’t even walk on them without breaking out the arctic gear. The reason why homeowners choose to insulate their houses is to have a more comfortable living space.
Reduces Energy Costs
Did you know that a house that is not properly insulated or under-insulated can lose between 20% and 30% of its energy? Air leaks around your doors and windows in your basement or attic can waste your energy. Which means that your heater and your conditioner will have to work harder to keep your home cool or warm (a harder-working HVAC system means a higher energy bill). With proper insulation you can keep your home efficient and keep your energy bills down.
Soundproofing
Insulation when is properly installed can effectively reduce the amount of noise that travels into and throughout your home, keeping it more quiet and peaceful. Particularly cellulose and fiberglass acts as an excellent sound absorber, it assists in reducing noise transmission through ceilings, walls and floors.
Moisture Control
Insulation when paired with proper air sealing techniques, can help control water in your home, even in the spaces where moisture most commonly gathers, such as basements or attics. Maintaining efficient moisture control contributes in part to your home’s overall energy efficiency and comfort.
Better Indoor Air Quality
Since insulation creates an effective barrier between you and the world outside, it also helps to keep environmental pollutants and irritating allergens out of the air circulating within your home. That is something to make you breathe a little easier.
Reduced Environmental Impact
You should know that insulating your home is good for the earth. When you use less energy for cooling or heating your home, you conserve fossil fuels and reduce the amount of chemicals released into the environment from A/C units.
Enhance The Value Of Your Home
If you are thinking about selling your home in the next five years, the amount of money you put into an insulation job will pay you back tenfold. But even if you aren’t selling your home, steadily increasing the value of it is not a bad thing.
Fire Protection
Insulation used in combination with other materials, helps provide fire protection in fire-stop systems, air ducts, grease and in electrical and communications conduits and cables.
Health Benefits
Living in a cold house can trigger ill-health since cold temperatures is the main cause of appearance of various factors that in time can seriously affect the health of those living in that home. Mold, condensation, dampness and mildew are the result of cold temperatures and high level of humidity within a home and these can affect the respiratory tract, leading to severe coughing or asthma.
What Should I Insulate in My Home?
Not sure where exactly to insulate? In addition to attic and walls, insulation should be installed in ceilings with unheated spaces, floors over unheated porches or garages, basement walls, floors above vented crawl spaces, knee walls, cathedral ceilings and in between interior walls. The aim is to create a consistent wrap around the home a thermal envelope with no penetrations.
Not every area is easily accessed. Attics and ceilings are always good places to start, because they are accessible and because more heat escapes through the roof than any other part of the home.
Adding Insulation in the Attic
A great place to add insulation is in the attic because it is a quick, easy, and cost-effective way to improve your whole home, especially when air leaks are thoroughly sealed first. Remember that your attic always needs an appropriate amount of ventilation.
Duct Insulation
In case that you are building a new house, place ducts in the conditioned space to avoid the energy losses associated with duct systems. If the ducts in your home are in an unconditioned space seal and insulate them.
Cathedral Ceiling Insulation
Properly insulating your cathedral ceiling will provide an even temperature distribution throughout the house because it will allow ceiling temperature to remain closer to room temperatures. Cathedral ceilings must provide space between the home’s ceiling and roof deck for adequate ventilation and insulation. This can be achieved through the use of scissor truss framing, truss joists or large rafters.
Wall insulation – Exterior and Interior
The thing that can make a big difference to your comfort is new insulation on the walls in and around your home. Injection insulation is one of the most effective ways of improving your interior insulation without the disruptions that come with traditional installation.
Foundation and Basement Insulation
Some homes lose as much as 30% of their heat through uninsulated foundations and basement walls. In case that you are starting from scratch modern construction techniques such as insulating concrete blocks or insulating concrete forms can help prevent insect infestations, moisture buildup and radon gas infiltration. New insulation in your walls can help increase your living space and create stable temperatures. Always the new insulation underground needs a professional opinion to ensure the right product is chosen for your home.
At Eco Spray we offer a variety of home insulation materials for your walls, attic, floors, basements and more. The benefits of home insulation can help you keep your energy bills down, improve temperature consistency, better soundproofing, lower greenhouse emissions all while providing increased indoor comfort and the enjoyment of your home.
If you’d like to make life a little easier for yourself, contact us at +1 (416) 860-6664 for a free estimate, where one of the insulation professionals will come in to assess your home and get it sorted for you.
