Best Residential Insulation Practices

The best way to insulate your house or church school or office building greatly depends on what type of environment you live in if you look at historic houses and buildings you can learn a lot about how to design for your climate because early builders had to adapt to the local conditions to try to make buildings as comfortable as possible.

Best residential insulation practices. Blanket insulation the most common and widely available type of insulation comes in the form of batts or rolls. Get the input of architects trade partners suppliers and other decision makers while the project is still in the design phase. Batts are about the worst you can do here. The best insulation types for your home new insulation options are less toxic and more energy efficient.

Reduce exterior wall leaks by taping the joints of exterior sheathing and caulking and sealing exterior walls. In this case it s because they weren t cut. Insulation tips for hot humid climates. See that photo above.

Do it yourself insulation of unfinished walls floors and ceilings. By susan lahey november december 2006. R value is a measurement based on a material s ability to resist heat flow. Icynene foam insulation is blown in using water and contains no cfcs or formaldehyde once cured.

Air krete cementitious foam is a nontoxic insulation that s sprayed into wall cavities. Whenever possible site the home to take advantage of southern exposure on the rear with fewer penetrations on the north side. Blanket batts and rolls are typically constructed with fiberglass although versions made of cotton mineral wool. Select a wall system that minimizes thermal bridging such as a double plate wall or one with exterior rigid insulation.

You also can find batts and rolls made from mineral rock and slag wool plastic fibers and natural fibers such as cotton and sheep s wool. For the best performance an insulation material needs to fill the whole space with no gaps voids compression or incompletely filled areas. Notice that you don t see insulation filling all the spaces between the ceiling joists. Here are some best practices for reducing thermal bridging.

Cavity fibrous or cellulose insulation can be installed at levels up to r 15 in a 2 inch x 4 inch wall and up to r 21 in a 2 inch x 6 inch wall. It consists of flexible fibers most commonly fiberglass. What is the best insulation. The higher the r value the better that material is for insulation.

R values can be higher for foam insulation and other advanced insulation systems.