The U.S. Department of Energy suggests that around 43% of your home’s total utility bill is put toward heating and cooling activities. With such a high percentage of your bills going toward powering your HVAC system, it only makes sense to invest in steps that make it operate more efficiently to lower your bills in the future. One great way to help boost the overall operating efficiency of your heating or cooling system is to invest in adequate insulation for your home.
What Is Household Insulation?
One of the best ways to think about insulation is to picture it as a barrier between the temperature outside your home and the temperature inside. All insulation is given a value known as an R-value, where R stands for resistance. The higher your insulation’s R-value, the better it’s going to be at preventing the transfer of heat from one location to the next.
Where Is Insulation Installed?
Most people are familiar with insulation being installed in their attics. However, insulation also gets installed on all the exterior walls of your home to better help with interior temperature control. Depending on the specific size of your space and your ability to access it, you may want to use one or more types of insulation. If you’re using more than one type, you simply want to add up the R-value of each insulation layer to get the total R-value for your home.
Types of Household Insulation
There are a few different types of insulation that you can invest in for your home, each with its own particular benefits and price point. One of the most familiar forms of insulation is going to be batt or roll insulation. This can be constructed of fiberglass, natural fibers, mineral wool, or plastic fibers. This is perfect for fitting insulation between studs, beams, and joists.
Another popular option is loose-fill or blow-in insulation. This is typically made of mineral wool, fiberglass, or cellulose. It’s perfect for getting into those hard-to-reach places where traditional batt insulation won’t fit. There are other types of usable insulation like spray foam and rigid foam that can be used in specific scenarios where batt and blown-in insulation doesn’t effectively work.
What R-Value Do You Need?
Your local building codes will be able to specify what R-value your home’s insulation should be. This recommendation in the ordinance is the minimum, and it’s very common for homeowners to opt for a higher R-value thanks to its ability to boost your HVAC system’s efficiency level.
Insulation Life Span
When investing in anything for your home, it’s important to understand the item’s usable life span. When it comes to household insulation, it lasts anywhere between 15 and 40 years depending on the type of insulation that you use and the amount of care that it regularly receives. Most homeowners do find that they need to add to or replace their existing insulation about every 10 to 15 years.
It’s a good idea to go up to your attic at least once a year and examine your insulation. More specifically, you want to be looking for any signs of pest damage and any areas that are missing insulation, and you want to see if your insulation has fallen below the top of the floor joists. Be sure to add insulation to anywhere that’s missing it. Additionally, you should add to your insulation in order to bring it up to sit just above the floor joists to offer maximum protection for your home.
How Does Insulation Affect Your Home’s Temperature?
Without adequate insulation in your home, heat can readily transfer from outside to inside and back and forth depending on the particular season. For example, let’s say it’s wintertime and your heating system is running to warm up your home. Without adequate insulation, that heat can easily transfer into your exterior walls and straight to the outdoors.
Insulation helps provide a necessary barrier to prevent that from happening. The same holds true during the summer season when you’re trying to keep the warm air outside of your home and cold air inside.
How Does This Affect HVAC Performance?
There’s no doubt that if the heat your heating system is producing is able to freely flow to the outdoors because you don’t have adequate insulation, then your heating system is going to have to run continuously to keep your home at a comfortable temperature. The exact same is true when it comes to air conditioning for your home. If heat from outside can constantly come inside, your cooling system is going to run nonstop to try and maintain a comfortable temperature inside your home.
This constant system running will overwork its internal components and cause excessive wear and tear. This will drastically increase your risk of experiencing a breakdown and can even shorten the overall life span of your HVAC system. Furthermore, all that excessive runtime will drive up your heating and cooling bills throughout the year.
When you put adequate insulation in place, you can help better preserve the temperature inside of your home throughout the worst of the temperature extremes. This will go a long way in helping to ensure that your heating and cooling system doesn’t overwork. This can lead to a longer system life span and significantly help to reduce your risk of experiencing a breakdown. Plus, insulation is a great way to help keep your utility bills in check throughout the entire year.
Other Helpful Tips for Boosting HVAC Efficiency
Having quality insulation in your home is just one of many ways to help boost the overall operating efficiency of your HVAC system throughout the entire year. Another major efficiency boost is to get regular heating and AC maintenance service. Your heating system should receive professional service in the fall and your cooling system in the spring. This is great for maintaining the warranty coverage on your system and for catching any potential problems while they’re small and easy to fix.
Installing ceiling fans is another great tactic to help reduce the runtime of your heating and cooling systems. You want the fan to spin in a counterclockwise or forward direction during the summer months to force a nice breeze down onto your body to wick away the sweat and chill you off. During the winter months, you want your fans to spin in a clockwise or reverse direction.
This helps force hot air stuck at the top of the room outward and back down. This way, you can easily reuse it to stay warm instead of constantly turning on your heating system. Additionally, consider installing a smart thermostat as it can help you to be more efficient with your system’s energy usage.
Reliable HVAC Service
Belle Air Services offers reliable HVAC service for the Playa Vista, CA community. Our knowledgeable technicians can happily assist with all your heating and cooling repair, installation, and maintenance needs as well as your indoor air quality, ductless mini-split, and heat pump needs. Call us today to book your next service appointment with one of our friendly HVAC technicians.
