Looking for ways how to lower your electric bill effectively? Search no further. Attic insulation is one of the best ways to maximize the efficiency of your home, increase its value, and lower your electric bill. The best attic insulation to use in your home depends on your home’s location, its layout, and your own personal preferences. However, don’t be fooled. This is a year-round necessity. Your home needs to be protected from cold air entering during the winter months and from warm, humid temperatures reflecting off the roof and entering your attic spaces in the summertime. Insulation ranges in price, depending on the required thickness of the space, its r-value, and the type chosen. Blown-in insulation costs are one of the most economical, offering the ability to blow loose-fill insulation into the attic and hard-to-reach spaces. Give us a call anytime. We’d love to come to help you and your family find the best-fit solution for your home to secure it year-round.
Attic Insulation 101
Before we dive into why attic insulation is required year-round, let’s talk basics. How exactly does attic insulation work? And how does it have a direct relationship to how to lower your electric bill? Let’s discuss this. The best attic insulation functions as a barrier between the outside air and the indoor air. It slows down the transfer of heat (whether air or sunlight) that moves in and out of your home via the attic.
In the winter, hot air rises into your attic and attempts to move outside. Heat naturally will seek to move to areas that are colder. As such, attic insulation acts as a barrier, making it more difficult for the warm air that you spent money to heat inside your home.
During the summertime, heat radiates onto your roof and conducts heat into your attic. The warm air from the outdoors attempts to enter the cooler air that is in your home. The attic insulation serves as a barrier, preventing the outdoor, warm air from entering your home.
This is why attic insulation is recommended as a year-round essential. Warm air is always seeking a cooler refuge. As such, your home is working overtime to keep the rooms warm, while the air is exiting and entering your home without any gatekeeper. The best attic insulation serves as that gatekeeper, ensuring that your home is working at maximum efficiency and lowering your electric bill.
Air Sealing
Another great addition to adding attic insulation to your home is air sealing. Attic insulation serves the purpose of stopping the conduction of heat transfer. However, it has no capability of preventing heat that is carried through the air. As such, even with the best attic insulation installed, you still may be wondering how to lower your electric bill. Air sealing is the final step to get your home working to its full potential.
Air sealing is just as it sounds. It seals the space allowing air to freely flow between the inside of your home and your attic. It ensures that warm air does not enter your home from the unconditioned attic.
Spray foam insulation is used to fill any holes that would allow air to seep through. It has the added effect of stopping air from circulating through your other insulation, making it work more efficiently and increasing its longevity.
Best Attic Insulation
Wondering what is the best attic insulation for your home? Well, it depends. There are many factors that would have to be considered before investing in insulating your home. It is a long-term solution, however, lasting between 15-20 years. Our team of experts will be able to sit with you and determine what is the best attic insulation for your space. There are three types of insulation on the market. Each is a fantastic option with certain specific benefits.
- Fiberglass Insulation
- Cellulose Insulation
- Rockwool Insulation
Summertime!
Especially during the summer, attic insulation can have a significant impact on your home’s security, longevity, and efficiency. Here are just a few of the many benefits it offers:
- A constant, cool temperature in each room of your home
- Consistent energy bills
- Lower air conditioning energy bills
- More efficient system
- Reduced energy waste
- Cool top and bottom floors
Year-Long Benefits
Living in Charlotte, NC, and the surrounding areas, you know that the summers are hot and winters get cold. This has a direct impact on the work your air conditioning must do to ensure that your home is comfortable year-round. While your heating and cooling systems have a significant effect on your home’s temperature, the home’s insulation plays a big role in your comfort, as well. Attic insulation, specifically, provides an additional layer of protection from the outside air and temperatures. Here are some of the great benefits that attic insulation offers to ensure year-round comfort:
Attic Insulation Reduces Energy Bills
Wondering how to lower your electric bill and stop spending excessive amounts of money on a home that still isn’t properly heated or cooled? The culprit may be your uninsulated attic and unsealed air vents. The attic is one of the most crucial places to protect, as the insulation and air sealing issues are exacerbated at the topmost and bottommost places of your home. Without proper sealing and attic insulation, a home in the heat of Charlotte, NC could suffer significantly from high energy bills, as your home inefficiently attempts to cool your home.
Attic Insulation Keeps Your Entire Home at a Consistent Temperature
Suffer from an excessively hot upstairs floor during the summer? This is a telltale sign that your home needs some attic insulation installed. Blown-in insulation is a fantastic option here, offering loose-fill insulation to be blown into the small crevices and buffering the heat entering your attic from also coming into your home.
Attic Insulation Assists your HVAC System
Not only does attic insulation serve a great purpose and function on its own, but it also is the wingman for your HVAC system. You can have a brand-new air conditioning system but if your attic is uninsulated, that cooled or heated air will not remain in your home for long. You’ll still be paying the high air conditioning costs while enjoying none of its benefits.
Attic Insulation Can Improve Indoor Air Quality and Sound Reduction
Attic insulation is a Renaissance man! It not only improves your home’s energy efficiency, assisting in lower energy bills but also can improve your home’s air quality. Old and mildew-filled insulation can have detrimental effects on your health, as you are breathing in dirty, musty air. Rodents and other pests who have found shelter in old insulation also could be leaving behind droppings that you are breathing in. The best attic insulation is hung, clean, and efficient, ensuring that your home is fully protected.
Attic insulation also is about to reduce sound transfer between rooms. Rockwool insulation, specifically, has this great quality, along with many other fire and mildew-resistant benefits. This serves as an additional benefit for your home and its value.
Attic Insulation Reduces Drafty Air from Entering Your Home
Find your home a little drafty even when every window is shut? Air should not be flowing through your home. If that is happening, most likely the cause is from unsealed cracks and gaps in the attic and other spaces in your home. We would recommend using spray foam insulation to seal up those gaps and ensure that all spaces, especially in your attic, are air sealed. This will ensure that cool drafts will not enter during the winter and hot, humid air stays out during the summer.
So what is the secret to how to lower your energy bill? By now you ought to know. Give us a call! We’d love to come out and take a look at your home and see where we can help make it more energy efficient and reduce your energy bills. We will find the best attic insulation for your space and ensure that the hot summer temperatures and cold, drafty winds in the winter no longer affect the temperature inside your home. We will be able to provide you with a quote for the entire project, including any and all blown-in insulation costs. Don’t wait! Reach out today!