How Much Does Attic Insulation Help Regulate Temperature?
Attic insulation keeps heat where it should be
Properly installed attic insulation could increase your home’s heat by five to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
Installing attic insulation costs $2,100 on average.
Having a professional inspect and install the insulation delivers the best results.
Keeping your home at a consistent, comfortable temperature doesn’t have to involve cranking up your furnace or air conditioner and hoping for the best when you open the monthly energy bill. Installing attic insulation is a proven commodity for maintaining a more consistent temperature without using more energy. How much does attic insulation help with temperature regulation? Up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit of benefit is common with a well-insulated attic compared to one without insulation.
How Regulating Temperatures With Attic Insulation Works
Using insulation in the attic helps you maintain more consistent temperatures in your home compared to not having enough or any insulation. Attic insulation creates a thermal barrier that inhibits the climate-controlled air in your home from mixing with the non-climate-controlled air in the attic.
Temperature Benefits With Attic Insulation
Most homes experience an increase of 5 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit after installing attic insulation. It prevents heat loss through the ceiling into the attic during winter and stops heat penetration from the attic through the ceiling into the home during summer.
If you experience a 10-degree improvement after installing insulation compared to when you didn’t have attic insulation, your furnace or air conditioner doesn’t have to work as hard. Without insulation, your HVAC system was working harder—and using more energy—to try to make up that 10 degrees to keep your home comfortable.
According to the EPA, homeowners can save significantly on monthly heating and cooling bills by installing insulation in their attics, floors, and crawl spaces.
Keeping Heat Out of the Home
On hot summer days when the sun heats up the attic space, insulation greatly slows the transfer of that heat into your main living space. With less heat entering from the attic, your air conditioner doesn’t need as much energy to maintain a consistent, cool temperature in the home.
Holding Heat in the Home
Because heat rises, attic insulation is even more important during winter. When you heat your home in winter with a furnace or heat pump, the heat rises and tries to escape through the attic.
Attic spaces cool quickly during cold winter weather. Heat from inside your home would move upward quickly to replace the cool attic air unless insulation in the attic is providing a barrier. The insulation holds more heat inside the home, allowing the furnace to run less often and consume less fuel.
How to Add Insulation in an Attic
To add insulation to an attic, you could do the job yourself with certain types of insulation. However, it’s often easier to have a professional do the work to ensure you have the right depth and material for your attic’s needs.
The best person to install insulation at your home is an experienced attic insulation professional near you. This expert can inspect your attic and determine what depth of insulation is appropriate. They can also give you an attic insulation cost estimate, but most homeowners pay an average of $2,100.
A professional installer can also ensure you don’t have too much insulation in the attic. If you haphazardly add more insulation to the attic yourself to try to save on energy costs and end up with too much, you can trap excess moisture in the space. If you have poor attic ventilation along with too much insulation, it could lead to mold and mildew growth.
Relying on a pro for an inspection and the installation gives you the best chance of success with this job.
What Kind of Insulation Works Best in an Attic?
Spray foam insulation is widely considered the best insulation for an attic, as it offers an excellent thermal barrier. The liquid application process easily fills in any gaps in an odd-shaped attic, keeping heat transfer at a minimum.
However, spray foam insulation can be expensive to install. Some people will select a lower-cost alternative, like fiberglass insulation. Fiberglass is highly effective in an attic, too, but it may not deliver the complete coverage that spray foam offers.
A professional insulation installer can look for signs of poor insulation in a home or attic and recommend the best insulation material.
Frequently Asked Questions
In addition to adding insulation to your attic, you may want to add a radiant barrier. A radiant barrier works by using reflective material, such as foil, on the attic floor. As heat penetrates the roof and enters the attic, the radiant barrier reflects the heat upward and back through the roof. If you receive a lot of direct sunlight on the roof, using both a radiant barrier and insulation in your attic can provide significant benefits.
If the temperature outside is around 90 or 100 degrees with the sun beating on your home’s roof, it’s common for the attic temperature to reach 150 degrees or more. This excessive heat shows the importance of having a radiant barrier in place along with insulation. The radiant barrier reflects the heat entering the attic back upward, keeping your home’s temperature more consistent.
The heat loss through a poorly insulated attic when you’re running your furnace or heat pump during cold weather can be as high as 25%. This means you could see significantly higher energy costs to make up for this heat loss. The cost of adding insulation to the attic may eventually pay for itself through lower energy bills. If you decide to add a radiant barrier too, the radiant barrier cost may also pay for itself over time.
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