Insulation Insights: Keys to Year-Round Energy Efficiency

When you think about home insulation, you may conjure images of a family gathered around the fireplace while Old Man Winter looms menacingly outside in relentless search of a way inside.

If it’s applied properly and in the right places, your home insulation should keep the heat out in the summer. Insulation is—or at least, should be—a 365-day-a-year benefit. For maximal home insulation, you must combat three fundamental problems: excessive air leakage, improper insulation installation, and inadequate insulation.But home insulation is every bit as relevant during the Dog Days of Summer. When it’s an inferno outside, and you’re desperately trying to keep your cool, don’t let up on your insulation savvy.

In this post, we’ll focus on…

Problem I: Air Sealing

Is the air barrier in the same spot as your thermal barrier?

Think of it this way: your house is your protection from the outside elements, and it should consist of an air barrier and thermal barrier joined together to combat cold and heat from entering or escaping.

Take a can light, the recessed light fixture that is a popular interior décor: it unobtrusively offers plenty of light for large spaces. But don’t let that glow obscure its darker, costly underbelly: although many homeowners assume that such a fixture set flush against the ceiling is air-tight, more often than not it is a source of major heat loss in the winter.

Your home operates like a chimney in wintertime. If warm air can escape from penetrations (like a can light), it will. For every cubic foot of your expensive, heated air that goes up and away, a cubic foot of cold winter air enters your house, most often in the basement or crawlspace.

EnergyMen always look for ways to properly seal air pathways (like can lights), to eliminate the chance for air to escape, taking the heat energy with it. This will allow your insulation to function as it was designed (most insulation types, like the commonly used fiberglass batt, will allow air to pass through it)

Next week: Problem II, Improperly installed insulation.