It doesn’t matter if you’re building a brand-new home or looking to improve the energy efficiency of your existing home — home insulation is important for every homeowner. Insulating a house can improve a home’s energy efficiency by preventing heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer. In the end, that’s going to save a lot of money on a homeowner’s utility bills
Older homes can especially benefit from more insulation, but new construction projects also need to be insulated to save homeowners big-time on their energy bills
There are many different ways to go about insulating your home. We’ll walk you through some of the most common methods and insulating materials, and we’ll take a look at R-values, the metric used to differentiate between how well different materials insulate
We’ll also identify which parts of your home are the most important to insulate and give you an idea how much of this you can do on your own — and what parts of home insulation might be best left to the professionals
Why Is Insulating Your Home Important?
Your home is your castle, but that castle has a lot of opportunities for the air you may have so carefully climate-controlled to leak out, or for the temperature outside to affect the temperature inside.
Your walls and roof don’t act as perfect air seals, and as a result, air leakage can occur. Your home’s airflow, and the quality of your home’s air sealing, are important factors in your daily quality of life
Every homeowner has a preferred temperature they like to keep their home, but the temperature outside can be at odds with that. By insulating your house, you can keep your home warmer in the frigid months of winter and cooler in the high temperatures of summer, and spend less on your utility bills in the process
How Much Money Can I Save With Home Insulation?
This is the question that probably drew you to thermal insulation in the first place — how much can insulating save on your monthly energy bills? Heating and cooling costs can make up a significant portion of a homeowner’s monthly budget, which means this is an area ripe for energy savings
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that “homeowners can save an average of 15% on heating and cooling costs (or an average of 11% on total energy costs)” by insulating and air sealing their homes. Those numbers can rise dramatically if you live in an older home with poorer thermal insulation to begin with
Bottom line: Home insulation is a home improvement project that can boost your energy efficiency while saving you lots of cash
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What Are the Energy Efficiency Benefits of Home Insulation?
Home insulation doesn’t just save you and your family money, it also saves energy. For those who are trying to go green, insulation’s energy savings make it a no-brainer
Well-insulated homes are much more energy-efficient than poorly insulated homes because home insulation acts as a way to prevent energy loss. If your house stays warm when you want it to be warm, or cool when you want it to be cool, you’ll be running your air conditioning or heating far less — and that’s where those energy savings come in
What Is An R-Value and Why Is It Important for Home Insulation?
Before we dive into all the different options you have for insulating your home, we need to talk about an important concept in the world of home insulation: R-values
An R-value measures how resistant a material is to the conduction of heat. A material with a low R-value will have a tough time stopping heat transfer if there’s a significant temperature difference at play
The higher the R-value of a thermal insulation material, the better that material will be at preventing heat loss (or heat gain)
The perfect R-value for your home varies depending on your local climate and which part of the house you’re installing it in. A regional R-value map can recommend the specific R-value you’ll need depending on where in the country you live
Also, tailor the R-value of your thermal insulation materials to the specific places in your house in which they’re being installed. Attic insulation requires a higher r-value than your floor (which makes sense, if you remember that heat rises)
Generally speaking, though, you’re going to want an insulation material with low thermal conductivity
What Are the Different Types of Insulation Materials?
There are many different ways to go about insulating your home, and many different types of home insulation materials (with many different R-values and thermal resistances). Let’s walk through some common types of home insulation materials
Batt Insulation
Think of batt insulation as a kind of blanket for your house. This insulating material can come in a number of different varieties, including mineral wool (sometimes called rock wool), plastic or natural fibers, and fiberglass batts — all of which make excellent thermal insulators
Batts are great for homeowners who like to take on DIY home renovation projects because they’re easy to install — just roll them out. They’re sized to fit in between wall joists, which means less trimming to size and an easier installation. Batts are less expensive than many other insulation materials, and can be installed in unfinished walls, under floors, or in ceilings to prevent air leaks
Loose-Fill Insulation
If batt insulation was a blanket for your house, then loose-fill insulation might be the pillows. Loose-fill insulation is a lot like what it sounds: a mass of insulation material — either mineral wool/rock wool, cellulose insulation, or fiberglass insulation — that is spread or sometimes blown in to the area you’d like insulated
Loose-fill insulation is great if you’re insulating an older home, since it’s a lot easier to spread inside a finished wall than, say, batt insulation. Many attics or unfinished rooms are good places for loose-fill insulation, as are odd-shaped or difficult-to-access locations in your home
Foam Board Insulation
If you’re looking for a bit more structure with your thermal insulation installation, consider using foam board insulation. These boards (often made from polystyrene) are rigid and can be installed in unfinished walls, floors, ceilings, and unvented roofs
If these are installed on the exterior side of a wall, they need to be covered with some sort of weatherproof layer. If a polystyrene insulation board is installed on the interior of a wall, it’s going to need a flame retardant covering to stay up to code
Spray Foam Insulation
Spray foam insulation is another great option for insulating an already-built home. There are a variety of different installation methods here, but often the foam is sprayed inside finished wall cavities as a liquid, where it then expands into a solid foam which can form a protective wall insulation air barrier
While most spray foam insulation tends to be polyurethane, there are two different types of polyurethane spray foam insulation to look out for: open-cell foam and closed-cell foam.
Open-cell foam is less expensive, but has a lower R-value and can’t be used in basements or low-lying areas where it might get wet. By contrast, closed-cell foam is denser, more expensive, and has a higher R-value
Overall, spray foam insulation tends to be a more expensive option, but it also has higher R-values than most batts. Your specific house’s convection quirks and your local climate will help you decide which building material to choose
Where Are the Most Important Places for Home Insulation?
Your house has a surprisingly large number of places for heat to escape in cold weather or enter in the summertime or if you live in a year-round warm climate.
Crawl space insulation, attic insulation, and exterior wall insulation should be your first three stops on your home insulation journey. These represent the bottom, sides, and top of your house, and make up your home’s thermal boundaries. They’re the places where most of your heat transfer — meaning either heat loss or heat gain — is going to occur
If your house has a basement, don’t neglect those basement walls. A quick reminder: if you use spray foam, make sure to go with the closed cell foam option to help lock out moisture
Is Home Insulation Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Friendly?
Home insulation can be a home improvement project to tackle yourself, provided you do your research and preferably talk to a professional to get a plan in place
Batt insulation is especially DIY friendly, so if you’re unsure about which cell foam to go with or what foam board to buy, sticking with batts isn’t a bad idea. Polystyrene insulation can also be done yourself, provided you install either the fire retardant layer or the weatherproofing layer, depending on the location.
Start Saving With Home Insulation
You now have all the information you need to start insulating your home, and reaping the energy and cost savings. Home insulation is what keeps our living spaces comfortable, but they need an installer like you, or a professional insulation contractor of your choice
Whatever the age of your current home, if you haven’t already taken a good hard look at home insulation since you’ve lived there, it’s probably a good idea to take that look now.
As you embark on this home improvement journey, keep in mind that the R-values you’ll need will depend on your local climate as well as the location in your house you’re insulating.
You also have plenty of different insulating materials to choose from. Feel free to bookmark this page as you narrow down your list of options.
In the end, you should be left with a house that’s a lot more energy efficient, and a utility bill that’s noticeably smaller—and those are things worth celebrating!
For more information on all things energy, stay tuned to the Tara Energy blog
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