Energy Efficiency - Northern Built

I was taught many years ago by an older fiberglass insulation contractor the importance of a quality insulation job. His biggest piece of advice, FLUFF, DON’T STUFF! Poorly installed insulation can have a big impact on the overall performance of a home. In this blog, I’m going to show you mathematically how a small insulation deficiency can have a big effect in how a home performs.

This thermal image is a good example. This was a brand-new home where I was performing a code required blower door test. I ran around the home with my thermal imaging camera before starting the test and thought I might be able to use this image to show thermal bridging, which it does a good job at, but if you study the pic a little closer, we see several areas where the fiberglass insulation was poorly installed. Compressing (not fluffing) the product creates areas of cooler temperatures in the insulation batts. The dark area (at the ceiling on the right side of the photo) shows an area of missing insulation. What effect does this poorly installed insulation have on the overall (effective) R-value? We can show the results mathematically.

Continue reading “The Effects of Poorly Installed (or Missing) Insulation”

Heat wants to move from someplace hot to someplace cold. It’s desire to reach equilibrium is one of the principles of the second law of thermodynamics. We have many methods and materials we use in construction to try to slow this movement. It’s expensive to condition a space and we want to hold on that space conditioning for as long as possible. One way we try to slow heat loss or gain is to prevent the wind from blowing through the home. Another is to shade the sun from beating through a window on a hot, sunny day (in some climates at certain times of the year, the sun can be a blessing). Insulation is one of the big ones we use to provide comfort to homeowners.

Continue reading “Construction Materials-Cavity Insulation”