Home Insulation Upgrades: 3 Ways You’ll Benefit This Winter

If you’re looking for an affordable and durable way to increase your home’s energy efficiency, consider adding more home insulation. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that approximately 50 percent of what you spend on utilities goes toward heating and cooling your home. When you increase insulation levels in your home, you’ll achieve these benefits:

  1. Lower energy bills. The Department of Energy recommends that Kansas City-area homes have at least 16 inches of insulation in the attic for the best protection from thermal transfer. Sixteen inches gives you an R-value of 38, which provides 38 hours of protection from thermal losses. The “R” stands for resistance, and each value gives one hour of resistance from heat transfer. The most common types of insulation found in homes are fiberglass batts or blown-in cellulose or loose fiberglass, especially in attics. Each inch of these has an R-value of approximately 3. You can achieve higher R-values if you use foam board or sprayed foam, whose values range from R-4 to R-8 per inch of thickness. These types cost more than batts or blown-in, but if your space is limited, they pay for themselves by lowering energy costs.
  2. Quieter home. Insulation not only blocks the transfer of heat, it also stops some of the noise entering or leaving your home. If you live on a busy street, on a flight path, or in a noisy neighborhood, adding insulation to your attic or even walls will deaden some of the sound. The easiest way to add insulation to walls is to blow it in, using either sprayed foam or cellulose.
  3. Improved comfort. Adequate insulation in the walls and attic cuts down on drafts entering your home and reduces the flow of heat from your living spaces to the attic in the winter. Adding insulation to the basement ceiling also keeps the floors warmer on your first level if you don’t heat the basement.

To learn more about the benefits of home insulation, please contact us at Overland Park Heating & Cooling. We’ve provided quality HVAC services for the greater Kansas City area since 1983.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Overland Park, Kansas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). 

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