The Benefits of Home Insulation

Posted by Ecostar Insulation on January 31, 2018

The top questions we get at EcoStar Insulation are always about the benefits of home insulation - what they are, how quickly do I see results, and quite often, from homeowners wondering - why bother in the first place? Adding or upgrading to modern insulation in your home and attic is one of the most important home improvements that you can do for your building and investment, with long-term benefits that include lower energy bills and decreased maintenance. New insulation will help you regulate your indoor temperature all year round, aid in preventing mold growth, and even help keep unwanted noise out. The benefits of home insulation often have such a great cumulative effect that it’s an easy decision for someone looking to make a huge impact in one fell swoop.

There are many benefits of home insulation, from the tangible day to day comfort of stable temperatures to the more intangible ones, like the effect insulation has on the environment. In an era of increasing home energy costs, ensuring that your home is an active agent in preventing heat loss and transfer has never been more important.

What Insulation Does: The Benefits of Home Insulation

If you’re thinking about adding home insulation, you might be familiar with the pink candy floss like fiberglass batts - a fairly typical type of insulation found in many Ontario homes. At EcoStar Insulation, we specialize in spray foam insulation, a contemporary option that offers increased coverage, higher R-Values, and a better, more impermeable barrier between you and the outdoors.

Insulation works by preventing heat flow - depending on the time of year, that’s either heat coming in or heat goes out. In the winter months’ heat is generated by your furnace, which is then spread through the rooms of your home. Because heat rises, an under-insulated space such as the attic, garage, or basement, can pull that heat away from the rooms where you need it most. Heat can also flow between interior walls, ceilings, and flooring - anywhere that you might find a temperature difference.

The best analogy for home insulation comes from the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation - while a wooly sweater might keep you warm on a dry, windless day, it won’t be effective when the weather changes, which is when a nylon raincoat or shell will help keep the elements off. A properly insulated house will have insulation (its wool sweater) and a moisture barrier (the raincoat) to keep moisture, wind, and other weather away from the structure of your home, where it can cause indoor discomfort, damage and mold growth.

Why Insulation is Important

Half of the energy that an average family uses to heat or cool their home leaks out without insulation. Adding or increasing the insulation in your home will result in a more energy efficient building that is both more functional and more sustainable. The benefits of home insulation are:

Increased comfort indoors
Substantial savings on your monthly energy bills
Soundproofing
Lower greenhouse gas emissions and increased environmental benefits
Reduced reliance and maintenance on heating and cooling systems

How Insulation Helps Reduce Energy Costs

One of the key benefits of home insulation is that it helps you reduce your energy bill. Added insulation will help your home become more energy efficient and stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter by reducing your need to use your HVAC system. Drafty, under insulated homes result in more wear and tear to your furnace or air conditioner, which shortens their life span and results in replacement and maintenance bills arriving sooner than expected.

Why Insulation Upgrades Will Save You Money

Your home in more than just a building - it’s the heart of your family. Taking care of your home can be a costly endeavor, especially when problems mount up and begin to affect each other.

One of the top benefits of home insulation is a decrease on the monthly bills and expenses related to energy consumption and home heating and cooling costs. New insulation can result in a 10-50% reduction on heating and cooling bills, depending on insulation type, your furnace, and where you add your insulation. New insulation also helps protect your house from mold growth (and giant remediation bills), make drafty rooms useable again, and reduces the formation of ice dams, which can rip down eaves and cause damage to the roof. Air leaks, one of the biggest causes of energy loss in homes across North America, are also often fixed or minimized by new insulation, making it one of the most cost effective upgrades you can do for your home.

The Environment Benefits from Home Insulation

If better insulation means a decreased reliance on heating and cooling, than it also means a decreased load on the entire system and on the earth. While new, environmentally friendly power sources are on the rise, many cities rely on energy that comes with a large carbon footprint, and reducing your home’s reliance on those sources is a benefit to us all.

Greater Indoor Comfort

One of the primary benefits of home insulation is that you’re simply more comfortable at home. Cold, noisy, humid, dirty - a home that suffers from these problems can be uncomfortable at the best of times. New insulation can make a big difference in reducing and preventing these problems by helping to control humidity, regulate temperature, and reduce dust, pests, and noise pollution.

Enhance The Value of Your Home

The value of your home can increase when you renovate or improve rooms, major appliances, or your yard. New insulation can add huge value for a homeowner because the benefits are wide ranging and potential buyers see the value in a comfortable, energy efficient home. Modern insulation products like spray foam live longer and provide greater value over traditional products, making it a great choice for long-lasting value. Regardless of whether you plan to move soon, the benefits of home insulation can have an effect for years to come.

Health Benefits

Staying healthy can sometimes be made more difficult by a chilly home, especially during cold and flu season. Colder temperatures have been shown to suppress your immune system by creating a sluggish immune response in your nose, which can then no longer effectively fight germs and viruses. Improving your insulation will help keep your indoor temperature stable and prevent your home from making you more vulnerable to this season’s germs.

Recognizing the benefits of home insulation can result in a huge savings in energy costs, a decrease in your environmental impact, greater home value, health benefits, and, most importantly, a cozier, more comfortable place to be with your family. At EcoStar Insulation, our years of experience in the residential insulation business has made the benefits of home insulation clear, and we’d be pleased to tell you more about how our products and services can help you.

Insulation Tips

When thinking about insulating your home, follow these tips:

Factors like your climate, home design, and budget are all important things to consider when selecting the type of insulation right for your home.
Choose the best type of insulation for the space - a high R-Value insulation, like spray foam, is ideal for exterior walls and high ceilings where you need the extra protection without the extra bulk.
Install tools, like wind baffles, along your attic eaves to help ensure that you have adequate ventilation - it’ll help the insulation do its job. Good ventilation also helps control moisture and reduce your summer air conditioning bills.

What Should I Insulate?

Adding Insulation in the Attic

The attic is a great place to add insulation; thinking back to the sweater metaphor, attic insulation is like a winter hat - an essential part of keeping warm. Adding insulation to the attic is a quick, easy, and cost-effective way to improve your whole home, especially when air leaks are thoroughly sealed first.

Foundation and Basement Insulation

The basement does not have to be cold and drafty! Some homes lose as much as 30% of their heat through uninsulated basement walls and foundations. Make that entertainment room, home office, or in-law suite a reality by installing new insulation at the root of your home. If you’re starting from scratch, modern construction techniques such as insulating concrete forms or insulating concrete blocks can help prevent moisture buildup, insect infestations, and radon gas infiltration. In existing homes, new insulation in your walls can help create stable temperatures and increase your living space. New insulation underground always needs a professional opinion to ensure the right product is chosen for your home.

Wall Insulation - Exterior & Interior

New insulation on the walls in and around your home can make a big difference to your comfort. One of the most effective ways of improving your interior insulation without the big disruptions that come with traditional installation (where walls need to be removed before batts can be inserted), is injection insulation with spray foam insulation. A few small holes, which can easily be sealed and painted over, are all it takes to improve a room.