We’ve talked about the importance of insulation before, when discussing the signs that your home has insufficient insulation, but it bears repeating: after your HVAC system, the insulation in your home is the most important factor in determining your home’s indoor comfort.
Much like your home’s roof and walls protect the interior from the weather outside, its insulation is installed in the walls, attic and crawl space to keep your interior temperatures from being affected by the temperature outside. After all, it doesn’t matter how good your HVAC system is if outside air is interfering with the conditioned air inside.
How Does Insulation Work?
Insulation protects your home comfort by providing resistance to heat flow. Heat flow, as defined by the first law of thermodynamics, is the flow of heat from hotter to colder; it cannot move from colder to hotter. This means that without insulation, the warm air created by your heating system will flow out of your house and into the cold air outside, while in summer the hot air outside will flow inside.
The heat flow resisting ability of insulation is measured as R-value, and generally the higher the R-value the better it resists heat flow. However, the EPA and Department of Energy have designated eight climate zones in the US and their respective ideal R-values for cost and energy efficiency. Thibodaux and Houma fall into Zone 2, meaning that our ideal R-values are as follows:
- Attic: R30-R60
- Floors: R13-R19
- Walls: R13
Determining Whether You Have Enough Insulation
If your energy bills aren’t completely outrageous, you can probably assume your home has insulation to protect against heat flow. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have enough insulation. The truth is, if your home is more than 10 years old, you probably don’t have enough.
This is partially due to changes in insulation ideals over the years and partially because many types of insulation can lose effectiveness over time. In fact, up to 90% of older homes haven’t got enough insulation to maximize the effectiveness of their home comfort systems! So if you live in an older home it’s probably good idea to have your insulation R-values checked, just in case.
Sick of High Energy Bills and Ready To Do Something About It?
Questioning whether your Houma or Thibodaux area home has enough insulation? Call Doug’s to perform a professional evaluation of your insulation. We’ll make sure your home is safe from unwanted heat flow! (985) 746-1116
