The Beginners Guide to Insulation

The Beginners Guide to Insulation

With a cold winter ahead, it’s important to keep your home comfortably warm. Not only does properly insulating your home keep it warm, but it can reduce the overall cost of heating your home all winter long. 

At Built Strong Exteriors, we believe a basic understanding of insulation will benefit every homeowner. Check out these insulation facts to learn more about the important unseen tool throughout your entire home that helps to keep you and your family comfortable all winter long!

Insulation Facts

  1. To Put it Simply: Insulation is designed to slow heat transfer – not to block air. Insulation helps your home to act like a thermos, keeping hot things hot and keeping cold things cold.
  1. To Put it More Scientifically: To maintain temperature comfort, the heat that is lost when the outdoor temperature is cold must be replaced by the home’s heating system. When a home is properly insulated, the insulation provides an effective resistance to the flow of heat causing the overall heat flow to decrease. That means a properly insulated home will maintain the heat the heating system produces. When the heat remains in your home, your home stays warmer, longer.
  1. Temperature control (heating and cooling) account for anywhere from 50% – 70% of the energy used in the average American home. Air leakage and inadequate insulation are the leading causes of energy waste in most homes.
  1. A properly insulated home doesn’t need to use excess energy to produce more heat. Less energy means less cost! Insulation reduces the average homes heating and cooling costs by 20%. Less cost means extra spending money for holiday season shopping.
  1. Key areas to insulate include:
  • Attics
  • Basements
  • Crawlspaces
  • Exterior Walls 
  • Garages
  1. There are several different forms of insulation:
  • Blankets (Batts or Rolls)
  • Loose-Fill (Poured-In)
  • Loose-Fill (Blown-In)
  • Spray Applied
  • Rigid Insulation
  • Reflective Insulation
  1. There are many different forms of insulation when picking the insulation best suited for your home, these factors are taken into account:
  • How much insulation is needed
  • The accessibility of the insulation location
  • The space available for the insulation
  • Local availability and price of insulation
  1. The amount of insulation needed is determined by the climate in which the property is located, the type of heating (gas, oil, electricity) the property uses, and the section of the property that is planned to be insulated.
  1. Insulation can be an investment, the initial investment in insulation will pay for itself in reduced energy consumption.
  1. Bonus benefits of a properly insulated home include: 
  • Sound Control
  • Moisture Control

Give Built Strong Exteriors a call today, we offer free inspections on your property to ensure your home is properly insulated for every season.