If you’re finding that your home is chilly on long winter days, or you’re feeling drafts in certain rooms, it’s time to evaluate the current insulation you have in your home. Many homes, especially older ones, are not insulated as well as they ought to be, which means homeowners are paying too much to heat and cool their homes. Look for these signs to help determine if you need more insulation.
Cold Floors and Walls
Walk around the rooms of your home and touch the surfaces that are adjacent to your home’s exterior walls. They should generally feel warm in the winter and cool in the summer. If these wall temperatures are significantly different from interior wall surfaces, it’s likely you don’t have enough insulation in the exterior walls. Adding spray foam insulation Maryland to your exterior walls will help your room surfaces maintain reasonable temperatures and keep your rooms feeling more comfortable all winter long. Floors may also feel cold near where they meet exterior walls, so be sure to check them as well.
Freezing Pipes
Water pipes that run along exterior walls in your home and basement are subject to the influence of outside air temperatures. Many people drain their exterior spigots and turn off the water to them to prevent freezing during the winter, but you’ll want to pay attention to your interior pipes also. To protect these pipes from freezing, it’s important to insulate your exterior walls well. If you’ve noticed any frozen pipes in your home, look into adding insulation immediately. Water expands when it freezes, meaning that frozen pipes can burst, causing extensive damage in your home.
Ice Dams Along Your Eaves
Icicles lining a home’s eaves can seem like a quaint picture of an idyllic winter, but in reality, they indicate insufficient attic insulation. When these icicle layers continue to build up, they create ice dams, or large ice chunks along the edges of your roof. If your attic is poorly insulated, some of the heat that you’re adding to your home for comfort escapes through your ceilings. This warm air can then melt the snow on your roof, which will re-freeze when air temperatures are very cold. This ice damming can damage your home and indicates that you’re wasting energy heating your home. A home with a thick layer of snow on the roof and few icicles is a home with a well-insulated attic.
Assessing your home’s insulation now can mean that you can have a more comfortable living space and lower energy bills through future heating and cooling seasons.
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