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Insulation Education
Thermal Transfer
Heat is transferred from hot to cold and escapes a home mainly through a process called conduction. The purpose of insulation in your home is to trap and slow down this rate through its RSI value (R value), its thermal resistance. This is done by the microscopic air pockets within the insulation that slow down the transfer of heat through the material. When choosing an insulating material, a better RSI value means less heat escaping/entering a home. Having no, or poor, insulation in your walls, or attic space, allows the radiant heat from the sun to penetrate your walls, and flow conventionally from hot to cold in the open cavity and conduct into your house. Essentially, the higher the R value, the slower the heat transfer, the more energy savings.
Attic Ventilation
A properly ventilated attic has more to do with keeping your house warm or cool than you'd think. It all sticks with the subject of heat transfer. Imagine yourself in a storage container on a hot summer day, then step outside that container. Hotter inside than out right? With air flow, internal and external, that air can be circulated, bringing cooler air in and expelling warmer air out. The sun radiates heat through your roof into this space, and if it has no where to escape, it builds, warmer and warmer, in turn also trapping moisture inside. Even with a high R value in your attic space, this heat will still conduct through your insulation in the summer and seep into your home. Now in winter, the reverse happens. Your attic will be much warmer than the outside temperature, melting snow and causing ice buildup on your eves and added moisture inside the attic. The perfect place to grow mold, mildew, and rot your roof. Having ventilation helps circulate the air inside your attic, and expel excess heat and moisture. By bringing air in through your soffits, or gable vents, and extracting air out through ridge or turbine vents this problem is easily solve. Proper venting is a must. What we do to help continue this circulation of air, is install baffles. These baffles create a pocket between the insulation and roof and allow air to flow freely. Another benefit to these baffles is they keep the insulation from touching the roof, which stops moisture buildup, and also prevents transfer of heat on the soffit ends to prevent ice damming.
Air/Vapor Barrier
One of the leading causes of the indoor temperature escaping your home is through breaks in the air barrier. The measures in place to curb this are your drywall, polyethene plastic, insulation, and Tyvek (House wrap). With all of these products in place your building is sealed fairly tight, but the most important piece to this puzzle is the polyethene that wraps between your drywall (paneling, plaster, etc) and insulation. When properly installed, with acoustical sealant and tuck tape, your homes air barrier is continuous and any leakage will be at a bare minimum. This "Poly" also doubles as a vapor barrier to keep moisture from seeping onto your walls, where if there is any moisture, it get expelled outwards instead of in. Another spot for this transfer to happen is between your windows and doors. The solution to this problem is either using a bit of canned spray foam or even better, a foam gasket with silicone sealant running along it. A properly sealed house always adds to the savings in energy, not to mention future renovations from moisture damage that could come along with one that is poorly sealed.
Sound Proofing
Sound behaves just like thermal transfer. Where the sound waves bounce around open cavities and transfer freely into the adjacent living space. As stated earlier, installing material, such as cellulose or rockwool, these waves can be easily dampened as there is no room for them to bounce around to transfer as easily. Think of it as yelling into a pipe. You can easily hear that voice from far away, but if you were to fill that pipe with material, you cant hear anything. That's why we recommend, if you want some privacy between rooms, add one of these 2 products in your wall/floor cavities. Even a noisy highway on your exterior walls, can be dampened greatly with the use of rockwool or cellulose.
Fire Blocking
In the tragic even that you should ever experience a house fire, fire blocking and the right insulation can save your life! Fire spreads in homes through cavities that opens up between floors and other rooms. One way insulation helps slow the spread is strategically installing it in areas that feed into other living spaces. Generally, this is done with rockwool as it has a a melting point of approximately 1117°C (2150°F) or cellulose treated with borates. Not only does proper fire blocking help save lives, but it can also save your home from total destruction.
Government Rebates
Click here to learn more about the Home Efficiency Rebate Plus program:
and the Canada Greener Homes Grant:
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