How Attic Insulation Affects Your Home All Year Round

Posted by pettey clarice on June 28th, 2018

Attic insulation keeps the heat from the rest of your house and the attic above. Because heat naturally travels from a colder to a warmer area, it always moves the wrong direction for the optimum efficiency and comfort in your house. In winter, heat in warm rooms rises and goes through leaks or the ceiling and into the attic. Because of this, your furnace exerts more effort to make up for the lost warmth. The same goes true with your air conditioning system in the summer.

Benefits of Attic Insulation

Homes that have been built around the 80s are considered under-insulated by modern efficiency standards. On the other hand, upgrading your attic insulation or can reduce your heating and cooling cost up to 50%, especially if the air leaks are sealed first prior to the installation.

Aside from saving energy, attic insulation replacement also extends your HVAC system's service life. That's because they have to run fewer hours without overloading as they maintain comfortable temperature levels in your home.

Moreover, the less fuel consumption there is, the smaller carbon footprint and less emission of greenhouse gases.

Choosing an Insulation

The quality of an insulation's resistance to heat is measured by the R-value per inch. Professional insulation services, like Attic Pro, says that the ideal R-value should be the base R-value multiplied times the installed depth in inches. The most common materials used in residential attic insulation are cellulose and fiberglass batts.

Fiberglass batts look like rolled blankets of pink wooly fiberglass material. You can commonly see them sold at home centers. They come pre-cut to fit perfectly in the attic floor. A professional insulation company like Attic Pro recommends using this material whether in a new installation or an attic insulation replacement. The standard fiberglass batts has an R-value of 3.2, which complements the commonly recommended attic insulation level in most states.

On the other hand, cellulose is made up of ground-up cloth and paper, which is then treated to become fire resistant. Since this is a loose-fill product, the installation is done by blowing it into the attic spaces using large pressurized hoses. Because of its loose-fill property, it can easily fill the smallest spaces in the attic.

Between these two materials, fiberglass batts can be a DIY project if you have the know-how while cellulose requires a professional attic insulation company like Attic Pro because it requires special equipment when you install it. No matter what your choice is, it is better to hire a professional attic insulation company because they have the right equipment and skills to do it.