Tips for Buying and Installing Insulation

By Grace Henry on March 28th, 2022

Home comfort is not just about a pleasant temperature. It’s about your energy bills. It’s also about drafts, noise, and air quality.  It’s about all the things insulation can — and should — be helping you control.

Your insulation choice impacts thermal performance, moisture management, airtightness, and acoustics. Choosing wisely during a home’s construction or renovation is essential, as upgrading later can be difficult and expensive. When your insulation system successfully controls all of the following aspects, you can achieve complete comfort in your home.

Thermal Performance

Heat always moves toward a cooler area. To block that movement between the inside and outside of your home, you need a material with good thermal resistance. A material’s R-value is a measure of its thermal resistance – the higher the number, the greater the insulating power.

Your climate zone determines the appropriate R-value you need. InsulPure™ offers a complete range of thermal values for basements, attics, ceilings, and walls that work effectively to help maintain comfortable, consistent temperatures throughout your home.

Our insulation calculator will help you determine which R-value suits your home and climate. To use this tool, begin filling out the state, county, and IECC. Once you have made your selection, the tool will calculate the recommended R-values for every location in your home. You can also choose to add in the square footage to determine how much insulation you will need for optimal at-home comfort.  

Air Tightness
Air will always find its way through every possible gap, no matter how minuscule, both indoors and outdoors. Sealing air leaks stops unpleasant drafts and plays a significant role in managing temperature, moisture, pollutants, and noise.

Our interior sealant, CertaSeal™ INT, will support your insulation performance by ensuring an airtight home.

Moisture Management

Controlling the unavoidable moisture that enters your walls – from outside when it’s humid and from inside when it’s not – is crucial to helping reduce the risk of mold and mildew growth. And when you guard against mold and mildew, you help ensure a healthier indoor environment for your family, as well as help protect your home against potential rot damage.

Our building and materials science experts have developed an interior vapor retarder with variable vapor permeance technology that adapts to changing environmental conditions of your building envelope as the season changes to effectively manage the moisture within your walls.

MemBrain™ Continuous Air Barrier and Smart Vapor Retarder will help protect your home from air leaks and moisture intrusion as it allows moisture to escape without trapping water in your home.

Play

Acoustics

It’s a noisy world out there. Even inside your home, the sounds from televisions, children playing, and even plumbing can impact the comfort of others throughout the house. Insulation helps block unwanted sounds from outside your home, and when installed in your interior walls, it can go a long way toward managing room-to-room noise.

If you have any questions, we’re always available to assist you. Don’t hesitate to reach out!