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What kind of insulation is BEST ?
It depends. It is best to advise based on each house's particulars. Please feel free to call or email us with your particulars. We are eager to help.
How much insulation do I need ?
Basically, you need as much as you can afford. There is an increasing diminishing of return with the more insulation you add. In other words, the last 2 inches that you install will affect your home's energy use less than the first 2 inches. But no insulation amount is wasted when properly installed in your attic. The Dept of Energy recommends an R49 value of insulation for most North Texas homes. If its too expensive for you to get to R49, then start by getting your home up to between R30 and R38. You can always add more at the start of the next season. For the vast majority of homes, getting to an R38 level of insulation would be a drastic improvement.
Do I need to remove my old insulation before adding the new ?
The only time that you want to consider the costly option of removing your old insulation is if your old insulation is profusely infested with rodent droppings. Droppings of mice and rats can carry the Hantavirus. Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome can be contracted by humans when they come into contact with the urine or droppings of infected rodents. It is a rare disease but can be deadly if contracted. Most homes have small amounts of droppings in the attic that should not be cause for alarm. Removal should be considered for those attics with serious accumulations of rodent excrement.
Do I need to be concerned about my attic's ventilation ?
Yes ! Just because insulation slows the movement of hot air doesnt mean that you should allow it to build in your attic any more than you can avoid. Ample soffit ventilation and roof vents are important aspects of your home's overall energy efficiency. We can help you increase your attic's ventilation by installing attic power vents, roof turbines and soffit vents. The goal should be to have 1 sqaure foot of ventilation opening for every 150 square feet of attic area. We can help you with the math AND the ventilation !
Is there a guarantee of savings when installing insulation ?
If insulation did not work, there would be no point in having it in our homes. We know that it works very well. It is impossible however to guarantee a certain level of savings with added insulation. There are many factors involved in your home's energy useage. For example, if you add more insulation but double the use of your clothes dryer, or air conditioner, then you may actually see an increase in your energy bill. Trying to guarantee a certain level of savings would be impossible to measure, document and prove.
My house is a pier and beam house. Can you insulate under my house ?
Yes, as long as there is about 3' of space to work in. Under house installations require an at-home inspection in order to receive an accurate quote. Batts of fiberglass insulation installed under the flooring of a pier and beam home can reduce the heat loss in the winter and help hold in the cold in the summer.
What about spray-on foam insulation ?
In order for foam insulation to work as one would desire, spray-on foam becomes impractical from a "return on investment" perspective. It is a very expensive method of insulation for most households. The length of time it takes to get a return on your investment is many times that of regular insulation or Radiant Barrier.
Will the insulation hurt my recessed canned lights when blown on top of them ?
It could hurt them if we did not install cones around the light fixtures before blowing in the insulation. You should always mention how many lighting fixtures of this type you have when ordering your insulation.
Should I insulate the attic above my garage ?
In most cases, it is a waste of money to add insulation over the garage. If the garage is air conditioned or heated, to enable you to do work in the garage, then it would make sense to insulate. Since most garages are not air conditioned nor heated, we would not recommend spending insulation dollars in this way. It would not hurt if you were to add insulation. It just wouldn't be of any significant help.
How does insulation actually work ?
Insulation works by creating a countless number of tiny air pockets that resist the movement of hot air towards cold air. The air pockets are important because air does not conduct heat as rapidly as solid materials such as wood, brick and sheetrock. The more air pockets there are, the more resistance there will be to the movement of the hot air. Thus, more insulation will result in more thermal resistance, also known as "R-value."
If Cellulose is made of primarily recycled newsprint, isn’t it flammable?
Actually, Cellulose has long been known to have superior fire-resistance over fiberglass insulation. In fact, there are now numerous fire-related construction assemblies for homes and commercial structures that call for the use of cellulose insulation. Its dense structure and fire retardant additives block flames and hot gases while restricting the availability of oxygen, thereby actually slowing a fire’s spread through a building. See this comparison:
Cellulose insulation, whether installed in walls or ceilings, is required by federal law to meet a surface burning standard most authorities regard as equivalent to Class I flame spread rating. To qualify as a Class I material, insulation must have a flame spread of 25 or lower as determined by ASTM Standard £-84. Most Cellulose products have flame spread rating well under 25. A famous testing laboratory has measured the flame spread of paper-faced glass batts at approximately 2,000. The principal hazard of Fiberglass insulation in a fire situation isn't the flammability of the paper facing. It's the unrestricted supply of oxygen which Fiberglass assures will be available to the burning framing lumber. Fiberglass has a wide open structure that is all but transparent to fire and air, and it quickly softens or melts as the fire intensifies. Thus, Cellulose that is properly treated will actually act to suppress the spread of a building fire, rather than cause it to spread.
Why can't I just roll out batts of insulation in my attic, rather than pay someone to blow in insulation?
Insulation that comes in batts require a lot of work, cutting and arranging in order to make sure that obtrusions such as pipes, wires, a/c units and floor structure do not reduce the effectiveness of the batts. This manual labor typically results in compression and voids in the batt insulation. The result is a significant decrease in the insulation's effectiveness, as R-Value is determined by the thickness of the insulation. Compression or splitting of a fiberglass batt to cover an obstruction in a wall is not easily fixed, as you cannot simply add more material. You would then simply have two highly compressed batts with a seam between them - remember, any gaps that are typical of batt insulation allow for drafts, which bring undesirable pollutants, noise and moisture into the home. By blowing in insulation, you get a monolithic, uniform, dense covering of all air gaps that would otherwise allow for hot air penetration into your home in the summer, and cold air penetration in the winter.
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