Insulation is important in the winter for obvious reasons, but did you know it also helps to keep your home cool in the summer?
Though insulation may seem obvious in this day and age, older homes often have very little or no insulation.
Because heating and cooling accounts for 50-70% of all energy costs, adding insulation is a critical step for anyone interested in lowering their energy bill.
It can be difficult to invest money in something you can’t even see day-to-day, but in the overall performance of your home, it’s critically important. And it’s becoming less and less hard on your pocketbook to install these much-needed updates. There are rebate programs through Puget Sound Energy and Cascade Natural Gas, and in some cases, rebate matching through the Community Energy Challenge (CEC).
Check out this great article: for a thorough description of the types of insulation, where in your home to put it, and much more!
The article also discusses geeky but useful things like R-Value of insulation. Turns out it stands for Resistance to heat flow. That makes sense! The DOE recommends an R-Value of R-49 for attics. And the better your insulation, the less hard your heating and cooling system will have to work, and therefore the longer before it breaks down. Win-win-win.
So, how do you know how much insulation you have in your home and where? Well, if you are handy and don’t mind wading through it yourself there are DIY ways of checking for insulation. However, if you’d rather leave it to the professionals, a Home Performance Assessment will tell you definitively where the insulation is. An Infrared Camera, used in most assessments, can look right through your walls!