If you suspect that your home is losing energy, one of the best things to address first is your home’s attic insulation. Upgrade insulation here and you’ll see significant energy savings.
Insulation is your home’s first line of protection against the movement of heat. In the winter, you want to keep heat inside your home. In the summer, heat needs to stay outside your home. Without any insulation, your home would have no barrier to block that heat movement. That’s what insulation does. It’s a barrier against the movement of heat, keeping it inside the home, where you need it in order to stay warm, and outside the home, where you need it in order to stay cool.
Because heat naturally rises, your attic space can become the prime gathering place for hot air. When that happens, your heating system has to compensate in order to keep your home warm. In the summer, if heat is allowed to access the home, it will rise into the attic, and your cooling equipment will have to compensate for the extra hot air in the space in order for you and your family to stay cool.
To upgrade your home’s attic insulation, you’ll need to first consider how much insulation it already has. Most older homes were constructed with lower levels of insulation or a lower-efficiency insulation. In an unfinished attic, insulation should spill out and over the floor joists, which is a good rule of thumb to follow to evaluate the sufficiency of insulation.
You can generally choose from two types of insulation for an attic space: loose fill or batt. However, loose fill is a lower-cost option, and can cover more space by filling cracks and crevices. In general, attic spaces should have an efficiency rating of 40, expressed in R-values.
Once attic insulation is performing efficiently, you can expect to reap savings from reduced heating and cooling costs. Would you like to talk to a professional and find out how you can save energy and money by making energy-saving upgrades throughout your home? Contact the experts at Arpi’s Industries Ltd.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about insulation and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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