Insulation

Insulation and Air Sealing

During the winter, the insulation in your attic keeps your home warm.  As heat rises in your home, the heat naturally moves to cooler areas and places where the temperature differs.  By adding insulation in your attic, the hot or cold air that usually escapes will remain in the interior, therefore keeping your home warm or cool, depending on the season.  Unsatisfactory insulation, air leaks and gaps in your home will cause your heating and cooling system to run longer in order to maintain the temperature in your home.  Consequently, your heating and cooling system will run inefficiently, consume more energy, and cause higher energy bills.

 

 

Insulation Services  ♦  Insulation and Air Sealing Products 

 

 Benefits to Proper Insulation

Improving the amount of attic insulation will greatly benefit your family, as it will decrease energy bills and home heating and cooling costs.  When proper insulation is installed, the temperature differences between rooms will decrease, your heating and cooling equipment will run more efficiently, and the chance of condensation forming in areas, which would result in the breakdown of building materials decreases. 

 

Air Sealing

Air leaks and drafts are easy to find because they are easy to feel. But spots where leaks are harder to find and harder to get to are bigger problems.  These areas include your attic, basement, and crawl spaces.  Sealing these leaks with caulk, spray foam, or other weather stripping will improve the comfort of your home, lower the cost of utility bills, and make your house more energy efficient. 

    

Retro-Fitting Insulation

Winter is the time of year that standard insulation really becomes an energy eater.  When air is heated in your home; it wants to rise and it go through the loose fill or batt insulation in your attic flooring. When this happens it takes the temperature and moisture that has accumulated in the living space and moves into the attic. Because of the air mass expanding (static pressure) in the summer months, sometimes attic vents are installed to relieve the pressure outside instead of it pushing into the living area. These same vents allow the pressure, temperature, and moisture in your home to escape. When air leaves the vents in the roof, replacement air must come in, bringing in cold air to be re-heated (Air Loss/Air Gain).

In retro fitting an existing home you must look first at where the most work will be done. The roof area of a house consumes as much as 50% of the energy needed to heat and cool a home. The crawl space of a home can consume up to 30% and the walls, windows and doors the balance. Without expanding air mass you do not need vents. By eliminating the vents, you have now stopped your heat rise loss in the winter months.  

 

Crawl Space and Attic Encapsulation

A crawl space dirt floor releases particles, odors, and moisture into the air which then builds up and gets released into the home through the crawl space vents.  Crawl Space Encapsulation (CSE) is the process of air-sealing a crawl space. When done properly, this eliminates moisture problems while also improving a homes energy efficiency.  CSE can also be used for radon mitigation.

If your air conditioner is located in your attic, it could be working harder than it needs to because your attic could reach up to 140 degrees during the summer months.  Performing Attic Encapsulation would help your heating and cooling equipment to operate more properly and efficiently.  Attic Encapsulation insulates the roof with spray foam that would therefore create a cap to stop air leakage. 

 

Our Insulation services assess potential problems with your home and prioritizes solutions that will improve the comfort of your home.

Review the questions below and see if we can assist you:

• Is your house drafty?
• Is humidity too high or low?
• Do your furnace ducts leak?
• Do you have excessive ice build-up in the winter?
• Is there condensation on your windows or walls?
• Do you have hot or cold spots throughout your home?
• Does your home need more insulation?
• Are your energy bills too high?