What is in your roof in the way of insulation?
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| Our brick and tile house |
When we bought this house about 25 years ago, it already had blown in recycled paper insulation. This was pretty standard for the time, and was usually installed to the R2 specification. Over the years, this kind of insulation can become compacted and lose a bit of its insulating properties. It still works though as an insulating layer, and we have not been in any hurry to think of a replacement project until we had done every other possible thing we could think of to improve the thermal properties of our brick and tile home.
We installed a north facing pergola with a grapevine for summer shade and winter warmth, we shaded our only west facing window, we improved the curtains and blinds. DH recently also went around sealing lots of gaps around doors, and those wall vents which let so much cold air in during the winter time.
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| The old insulation |
We decided that this was the season we would upgrade our insulation. A local family owned business came with a huge vacuum and sucked up all the old insulation, and replaced it with "EarthWool" batts at the now recommended rate of R4. "Earthwool" batts are over 80% recycled glass and use no added formaldehyde in their production.
The team also installed special covers over the exhaust fans, so that they are sealed when not in use.
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| The new insulation and a cap sealing the vent on the exhaust fan |
Why did we do this?
This diagram of the temperatures for our city will explain.
Like many places Perth's climate is getting a lot hotter. We wanted to see if we could improve the temperatures inside our home without resorting to the use of air conditioning (this is a last resort for us, but we may have to do it at some point in the future). Last year the lowest temperature we recorded inside was 14C and the highest was 30C. We wanted to see if better insulation could bring those extremes back a bit-we want to be comfortable. It is early days yet, but even though the past week had outside temperatures down to 4C we did not get lower than 17C inside. We have also not used much heating in the evening.
Would I recommend this to others?
I think that we need more data to be completely certain we have a Return on Investment recommendation, though initial results look promising - I will keep you posted!
Meanwhile I encourage you to watch a blogger named Nev talk about the measures he has taken to improve his place in Western Sydney -also visit his blog Under the Choko Tree
4 comments:
Insulation makes a huge difference! It should keep out a lot more heat for you :-)
We are R13 walls and R49 in ceilings here. We spend some time below 20F so it's needed.Our average temp ranges 24-93 around the calendar.
Congrats on the repair!
Our climate is so different to yours. We rarely get temperatures over 25°C here in the summer so we have no need of air conditioning, opening the windows usually ensures that the house stays cool enough. In the winter we can get down below freezing outside, we have a cavity in our walls, it is double skinned with a gap in between, which we have insulated. We also have insulation below the floors we have a large void below our house. In the loft we have insulation which is done by mm here, my husband fitted it and I know that is double what is it suggested, we have also boarded it out and carpeted it with some old carpets we found in a skip to help with insulating it. We have a slate roof. Our biggest problem is making sure that water does not come into the fabric of the house, our climate is very damp and this is something it is really important to be aware of where we live.
I don’t even know the rating of insulation in this house. It’s blown in type and the previous owner had done a couple of years before I bought the house.
I’m in the process of planting trees in the front yard as the house faces west and can get very hot in the summer.
I don't know what kind of insulation I have. I've planted a lot of trees, and that has really helped to keep the front porch cool. Now that I can retreat to the cabin in the mountains, that really helps. Sept. and Oct. are our hottest months here in California. Swimming in the snow melt up at the lake really helps me to keep my body temperature cool this time of year. I hope your new insulation works well for you.
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