Home Insulation - The Important Things to Keep in Mind

Many people seem to just deal with it for granted that their house will have been well insulated during construction. This sadly is regularly not the case. There are several reasons why your house might not be up to scratch in terms of insulation. The first is because the building contractor who built your house may very well have cut corners and easy omitted the correct level of insulation in an effort to put away costs. Fortunately this practice is quite rare in houses built within the last 10 years, due to regulatory controls.

The next reason your house may not be as well insulated as you would like is not actually the fault of the builder. In some states the building codes are quite least in their insulation requirements. Putting in the total minimum building code requirement level of insulation is not recommended. It would always advocate using at least 20% more insulation depth, mainly in the attic, the most important rout for heat loss.

If you think you may need to boost your insulation, the easiest option is to charge a survey of the house. In the energy conscious times you live in there should be a lot of surveyors in your home area offering their services. What you are following is an insulation or energy audit. This will take on an experienced surveyor giving your house a detailed inspection, highlight areas where you should enhance you level of insulation. The surveyor will then submit a report that you can use as your blueprint for planning potential insulation projects.

If you are not sure whether or not you have to charge a survey, then first perform your own preliminary inspection. Signs that you might have a problem include temperature changes as the heating has been turned off. A well insulated house should keep a steady temperature for quite a while after the heat has been turned off, and not feel cold in half an hour.

An assessment of your attic should be carried out, you should check to confirm that you have between 10 and 15 inches of mineral wool uniformly distributed over the floor of your attic. The key here is to ensure there are no gaps or patches in the insulation somewhere heat can be leaked. If this level of inspection throws up a few warning signs, then it is well worth having a complete survey done, if corners were cut in the attic, who knows where else you insulation might be poor.