Best Residential Insulation Practices

R values can be higher for foam insulation and other advanced insulation systems.

Best residential insulation practices.

The best way to insulate your house or church school or office building greatly depends on what type of environment you live in if you look at historic houses and buildings you can learn a lot about how to design for your climate because early builders had to adapt to the local conditions to try to make buildings as comfortable as possible. It consists of flexible fibers most commonly fiberglass. Do it yourself insulation of unfinished walls floors and ceilings. You also can find batts and rolls made from mineral rock and slag wool plastic fibers and natural fibers such as cotton and sheep s wool.

Here are some best practices for reducing thermal bridging. Batts are about the worst you can do here. Air krete cementitious foam is a nontoxic insulation that s sprayed into wall cavities. The higher the r value the better that material is for insulation.

Blanket batts and rolls are typically constructed with fiberglass although versions made of cotton mineral wool. The best insulation types for your home new insulation options are less toxic and more energy efficient. Select a wall system that minimizes thermal bridging such as a double plate wall or one with exterior rigid insulation. R value is a measurement based on a material s ability to resist heat flow.

By susan lahey november december 2006. Blanket insulation the most common and widely available type of insulation comes in the form of batts or rolls. 14 best practices for high performance homes from our experts. Get the input of architects trade partners suppliers and other decision makers while the project is still in the design phase.

Thermal bridging can best be minimized in the design phase by a designer who includes cost effective thermal bridge free details. In this case it s because they weren t cut. For the best performance an insulation material needs to fill the whole space with no gaps voids compression or incompletely filled areas. What is the best insulation.

Reduce exterior wall leaks by taping the joints of exterior sheathing and caulking and sealing exterior walls. See that photo above. Notice that you don t see insulation filling all the spaces between the ceiling joists. Cavity fibrous or cellulose insulation can be installed at levels up to r 15 in a 2 inch x 4 inch wall and up to r 21 in a 2 inch x 6 inch wall.

One way to assess what is the best insulation is by a measurement called an r value.