During the Summer months we generally think about the cooling environment of our homes and want to make sure that the house is properly insulated, but come winter time, we don’t think about it as much. Insulation works both ways. It helps to keep your home warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
This could be a costly mistake for homeowners. Yeah maybe you put it off during the summer due to lack of money, but now you have some saved up. Might be time to tackle that insulation issue head on and make your home better for energy conservation. Either way it’s money out of your pocket to the electric company. The question is how much of that money would you like to put back in your pocket? If you are like me, as much as possible, am I right?
Did you know that almost half of the energy we use to heat or cool our homes would leak out without insulation? When we think of insulation, we usually associate it with keeping our home cool in the summer season, but insulation helps just as much in the winter months. During the summer, attics can reach sweltering temperatures of up to 150 degrees in the summertime. Having a hot attic and little insulation between it and the rest of your home means that, on a hot day this extreme heat can “leak” into your home through your ceilings. In the winter, you can build a fire (cost: buying wood) or wear a lot of sweaters. Running your heater all the time to maintain a comfortable temperature in the winter can cut into your funds that would be better served for the holidays! Why would you voluntarily give it to the electric company. I am sure they are more than happy to take your money, but a little effort can yield a bigger reward!
If Your Attic is Cooking, So Are YOU!
Hot air leaking into your home drastically increases the cost of cooling your home. Unfortunately, building
materials like wood and drywall soak up heat easily and radiate it back. With no insulation to keep your ceiling from soaking up the heat from the sun, that heat will, in turn, radiate down into your home causing the temperature to rise and more money to be wasted trying to cool it. For homes that have their duct work run through their attic, this problem is exaggerated because the heat in the attic can suck all of the coolness from the air and result in your ducts blowing warm air. The air delivered to your home from your AC unit outside ends up working overtime to get your home to the desired temperature you set. Proper attic insulation and ventilation will help to greatly reduce rising temperatures in your attic.
Older Homes May Have Less Effective Attic Insulation
If your home is 30 years old or older, it may not have any insulation in the attic. Or maybe you haven’t added to your insulation in years, it may be compressed and therefore less effective. Either way, you could be losing heating and cooling dollars every single day. Insulation works by trapping little pockets of air that then form an air barrier between the inside and outside temperatures. Because these pockets of air can’t move, they can’t travel through the insulation to transfer their heat.
Products like a radiant barrier foil applied to your attic will reflect 97% of the Sun’s heat back out and lower your temperature in your attic, thus lowering the stress on your AC unit, and in turn save you money that you would have been burning up by not having your home properly insulated.
Over time, insulation settles, is introduced to moisture which weighs it down, and may even get walked on occasionally all of which presses these pockets of air out of the insulation making it less effective. See our article on R-Values for the region of the United States where you live. It will demonstrate the proper level of insulation your home should have in order to maintain its maximum energy efficiency.
A Small Investment in Attic Insulation Such As Radiant Barrier Foil Can Make a Huge Difference
As shown in the example above, just a simple application of radiant barrier foil can make a heck of a difference in how your home reacts to heat rays beating down on it all day. Statistics don’t lie!
Considering that about half of a household’s entire energy bill goes to heating and cooling, and attic insulation is relatively inexpensive, there’s little money to be lost and lots to be gained from insulating your attic. You’ll reduce heating and cooling bills, give your furnace and air conditioner a break, and improve the comfort in your home.
Give Ultimate Radiant Barrier & Insulation a Call or fill out the Free Quote Request form and see what options we have to save you money.
