If you want to improve the energy efficiency of your home and lower your monthly bills, adding attic insulation in winter is a great way to help with this. It offers many other benefits as well.
Benefits of Adding Attic Insulation in Winter
The advantages of insulating your attic include:
- Improving heating efficiency: Insulation acts as a thick blanket on top of your home to keep heated air inside, resulting in energy savings. Insulation also helps keep your home cooler in the summer.
- Boosting home comfort: Insulating your attic helps eliminate hot and cold spots. You can expect a more comfortable, consistent temperature when you aren’t losing heating through the ceiling in the winter.
- Reducing your carbon footprint: Any time you cut back on energy consumption, you reduce the amount of emissions your home adds to the atmosphere. In this way, adding attic insulation in winter is good news for the environment.
- Preventing ice dams and roof problems: Heat rising into the attic doesn’t just waste energy bills; it also leads to roof problems in the winter. If the attic becomes too warm, snow on the roof melts from the underside, refreezing into an ice dam as it approaches the cooler eaves. This permits water to sit on the roof for an extended time, refreezing at night and creeping in under the shingles. This damages the roof and causes water leaks. Insulation helps prevent these problems.
Adding attic insulation in the winter can help keep your home warmer, but keep in mind that it’s beneficial to insulate this space (and other areas of your home) any time of year!
Attic Insulation Tips
- The EPA recommends a total heat resistance value, or R-value, of R38 to R60 in Virginia home attics. Different types of insulation have different R-values, so the thickness you need will vary.
- Never cover the attic eaves when installing insulation. This ensures proper airflow from the soffit to the ridge vent at the peak of the roof, which is important to prevent moisture problems and ice dams.
- Use caution when installing insulation near a recessed light fixture. It’s a fire hazard to insulate around fixtures that are not insulation contact (IC) rated.If you install the insulation yourself, wear proper protective gear, including disposable overalls, goggles, gloves and a dust mask.
To learn more about adding attic insulation, get in touch with the team at Big City Insulation of Idaho, serving Boise and the surrounding areas.
