Radiant Barrier Insulation
Radiant Barrier Insulation
If you want to block the heat from getting in or out of your house, then radiant barrier insulation is an option for you.
There are, in fact, many different ways to help insulate your house in order to save money on energy bills with the rising costs of energy. The radiant barrier is one of the best. Radiant barrier insulation can be added during the building of your house or it can be installed as an after-market product to your existing house to help lower energy costs.
When this type of insulation is added when a home is being built, it is added under the concrete, inside the walls, or in various other places while the home is being built. One of the ways to add radiant barrier insulation to your attic after the house is built is by using rolls of the insulation which is laid on top of the already installed attic insulation. You buy it by the yard roll, and a few yard rolls should be enough for most projects.
The savings that people can expect by merely adding rolls of the barrier insulation to their already existing attic insulation can be around 17% of their heating and cooling costs, with extreme cases seeing a 50% reduction in these energy costs. One example of this extreme situation would be installing the radiant barrier in a large and spacious house that is built in Arizona keeping the temperature around 65 degrees Fahrenheit during summer months. This is not the only situation that a person might be able to see such high reduction in their energy costs, but just an example of the scarcity of the situation. If you are the average home-owner you should expect to see the lower range of 17%, which is still a significant amount when you realize that this amount can total over $300 in a year. The main thing to keep in mind is that installing this type of insulation can help you keep your house at a preferable temperature without spending as much money.
A person can easily install this insulation on their own by simply laying the rolls of radiant barrier insulation on top of the pre-existing attic insulation. If you are planning on doing the job yourself, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. The first thing you want to remember is that you should be using a material that will allow excess water vapor to easily pass through so you do not have to deal with moisture build-up that can occur. The second thing you want to keep in mind is that you need to follow the manufacturer’s instructions when installing this insulation, just like installing anything else in your house. If, by some chance, the manufacturer does not supply adequate instructions for the job, or you are having a hard time understanding the instructions, then it is probably best to choose another manufacturer.
If you decide to have your radiant barrier installed professionally, then you need to keep a couple of other things in mind. First of all, you need to make sure that the people you are paying to do the job know exactly what they are doing. There are many websites out there that can assist you when choosing a company to hire. The second thing you need to keep in mind, after you choose a company, is to ensure that they have some type of insurance in case the workers damage your home in any way. The idea is for the insulation to save you money, not to cost you money. Stop relying on your curtains and blankets to hold in the heat and go with the more effective method of radiant barrier insulation.
