Insulation for Greater Energy Efficiency, Summer or Winter

Insulation for Greater Energy Efficiency, Summer or Winter

Adding insulation to your home can dramatically improve the efficiency of climate control systems. What a good layer of insulation will do is help seal a home’s envelope, which consists of the components that shield the inside of the house from the outside elements, namely the walls, roof and the foundation.

Having your home properly insulated serves three major purposes:

• Keeping warm air inside the house when it is cold outside
• Holding in cool air from an air conditioner when it is hot outside
• Maintaining a comfortable humidity level in the house year-round.

During the winter, your heater will be adding warm air to your house to get the temperature to a comfortable level, depending on how you set your thermostat. Warm air tends to rise, meaning that most of your heat is going to try to escape up through your ceiling. A layer of air tro insulation can prevent this. Insulation comes in several forms: cellulose, fiberglass, spray foam and a rigid foam board. You can use spray insulation for areas with lots of nooks and crannies, while using batts to save money for large open areas. Also recommended for warm climates such as ours is reflective insulation called a radiant barrier, usually installed on the attic floor.

Summer months in Pasadena are pretty warm, meaning the A/C will be running quite a bit. Because cool air tends to sink, you should be more concerned with insulating your walls in order to reduce the loss of cool air as much as possible. Adding a few inches of fiberglass batt with a high R-value (a measurement of the insulation’s ability to resist losing heat) should keep everything well insulated. Walls, basements and attics have differing R-values, depending on the climate. Your HVAC specialist can give you more specific information on the R-value of your home.

Feel free to contact us in order to learn more about how insulating your home can cut down on your monthly bills. We have been proudly serving the Pasadena area since 1969 and our friendly, professional staff is ready to help you with whatever questions you might have.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the greater Los Angeles, California area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).

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