It can be challenging to remember that there is still a need for insulation in Fort Lauderdale homes. Typically, people only think of cold weather and keeping a home warm inside when they think of insulation. However, temperate climates have just as high of a need for insulation as cold weather locations do. While intense cold can cause pipes to freeze, extreme heat and humidity can cause walls to warp and pipes to sweat. Both ends of the spectrum warrant proper climate control. This article will walk you through a few steps on how to check your insulation yourself to see if perhaps your home could be more energy efficient.
Your Attic Insulation: How to be Sure You Have Enough
Houses typically lose most of their energy through the roof. This means the most critical place to verify your homes insulation level is in the attic. However, checking your attic’s level of insulation can be dangerous, and there are a few health and safety issues you should take into consideration before beginning a task like this by yourself.
- Some older insulation materials can contain hazardous materials such as asbestos.
- Areas of your house, like your attic, are often unfinished. This means that there can be dangerous areas where nails stick out beyond the boards that can be stepped on, brushed up against, or bumped into, causing a puncture wound that may result in the need for a tetanus shot and other first aid measures.
- Due to the areas being unfinished, you will need to know where your joists are for maneuvering purposes. Most attic areas only have minimal walking space. One misstep could have you falling through your ceiling. Tumbling in this manner could cause injury to yourself and a great deal of damage to your home.
If after carefully considering these safety issues you are confident you can accomplish an insulation check in your attic, here are a few easy ways to ascertain if you have enough insulation.
- Eyeballing it!
- You can judge the levels of insulation in your attic just by looking at it. If the insulation is below or even with the attic joists, you likely need to add more insulation to your home. If the levels of insulation are above the joists, it is possible that adding more insulation to this area may not increase your homes energy efficiency.
- Be sure to look for even distribution. Typically, insulation settles at different rates, and the center of most attics have more insulation than the areas along the eaves. If any areas look wet or damaged, you may need to remove old insulation to make room for new and better working material.
- Measuring it!
- To do this correctly, you need to know your climate zone. Here in Fort Lauderdale, our climate zone recommends an attic R-value (the recommended level of insulation in your home) of R30 to R49. The amount in inches of blown insulation needed is dependent on the type of insulation that you have.
- You can judge the levels of insulation in your attic just by looking at it. If the insulation is below or even with the attic joists, you likely need to add more insulation to your home. If the levels of insulation are above the joists, it is possible that adding more insulation to this area may not increase your homes energy efficiency.
- Loose fiberglass
- 5 x depth in inches = R-Value
- Rock wool
- 8 x depth in inches = R-Value
- Cellulose
- 7 x depth in inches = R-Value
- Vermiculite
- 8 x depth in inches = R-Value
- Fiberglass Batts
- 2 x depth in inches = R-Value
- Note: Some fiberglass batts are printed with an R-Value rating on them.
If after calculating your homes R-Value, you find that it is lower than your climate zone indicates it should be, you will want to call a Fort Lauderdale insulation installer to get your attic insulation updated to the necessary levels to help save energy and reduce your heating and cooling costs.
A Best Insulation and Your Home Energy Audit
A Best Insulation is your Fort Lauderdale Insulation Company. We have a scientific method for helping clients manage their home energy issues. Here is an overview of our process.
- The home energy audit:
- We run diagnostic testing on your home with specialized equipment such as infrared cameras which allow us to collect visual data on where heat transference (energy such as hot or cold air moving from one space to another) is occurring.
- The data review
- This is where we run an evaluation of your home’s energy efficiency. Once we have located the problem spots, we can implement a plan to correct the issues.
- Cost-effective solutions
- In this phase, we implement the answers found in the data review step.
- The verification
- This step is a repeat of the home energy audit. After we have completed the solutions, we rerun an audit to show you that all the problem areas that were showing before having been neutralized.
If you are unsure if your attic has enough insulation, to be safe, we recommend that you contact us to schedule a home energy audit today!
