Category: crawl space insulation

Five Ways to Prepare Your Home for Winter

Winter is here again! If you’ve neglected making energy upgrades to your home, get ready for the same issues you faced last year…

Prepare Home For WinterWinter is here again! If you’ve neglected making energy upgrades to your home, get ready for the same issues you faced last year. Winter weather problems can include equipment malfunction, pest infiltration, indoor air quality issues, not to mention high energy bills.

It’s not too late to get your home ready for winter! Energy improvements will make your home more comfortable today and all year long! Here are five ways to get your home ready for winter:

Seal Air Leaks
Air sealing is one of the least expensive and most effective ways to reduce energy loss and keep energy bills low. Air leaks around a home can waste approximately 10 to 15 percent of the money a homeowner spends on heating bills. Sealing air leaks around doors, windows, recessed lights, ductwork, chimney chases and more will keep conditioned air inside your home and reduce wear and tear on your heating system.

Upgrade Attic Insulation
After air sealing, adding a layer of blown-in fiberglass insulation to your attic can further reduce your energy bills and help keep your home comfortable. Even if your home is newer, it may not be adequately insulated based on today’s building codes. (Unsure if your attic is properly insulated? Our staff can help!)

Insulate and Seal Your Crawl Space
Crawl spaces are naturally cool and damp. Because they are in direct contact with the main floor of your house, the condition within your crawl space can affect your home’s comfort level. As your home breathes from ground to sky, this cool and damp air is drawn into your home’s interior through tiny penetration points around your floor. This can lower the internal temperature of your home and drive up your heating bills.

Check Your Furnace
Confirming your furnace is in good working order can ensure that it’s working as efficiently as possible and can uncover any problems that could cause a midwinter breakdown. Don’t forget to change your furnace filter! Regularly changing the filter can help your furnace run more efficiently and reduce dust in your home.

Upgrade to LED Bulbs
Have you taken inventory of your home’s light bulbs? Investing in LED bulbs pays off quickly! Upgrading to LED bulbs can reduce your energy bills, especially during winter’s shorter days when lights are on more than any other time of year.

Investing in these improvements will pay off in energy savings and a more comfortable home all year long. Have questions about air sealing, insulating, your crawl space or anything above? Contact our office – our team can help!

Three Reasons to Seal and Insulate Your Crawl Space Before Winter

Winter is around the corner. Unless you’ve invested this year in home energy improvements, your home will be as inefficient and uncomfortable this winter as it was last winter.

Crawl Space Insulation before WinterWinter is around the corner. Unless you’ve invested this year in home energy improvements, your home will be as inefficient and uncomfortable this winter as it was last winter.

If your home has a crawl space, sealing and insulating your crawl space can dramatically improve your home’s comfort, reduce energy bills and improve the quality of air inside your home.

Today’s building science proves that what’s beneath your home affects the comfort inside your home. A home’s natural airflow is from bottom to top (from the ground to sky). As your home naturally breathes, air is drawn up from the basement or crawl space, through the living area and out through the attic. This natural airflow means air from a moist crawl space (and everything in the crawl space air) flows up and into your home’s living area.

Here are three reasons to insulate your crawl space before winter:

  1. Improved Air Quality
    Crawl spaces are naturally damp. As your home breathes, air from your crawl space flows into your home’s living space through penetration points around wiring, plumbing holes and more. This means the air in your crawl space is mingling with the air you breathe every day. Not only is this distasteful, it’s unhealthy. Air sealing and insulating your crawl space will improve the air quality and help keep pollutants out of your home.
  2. Lower energy bills
    Does your furnace run more than you’d like during winter? This is a result of your HVAC system heating air from the crawl space that’s mingling with the air that’s already been heated. This means your HVAC system is continually working to maintain your home’s internal temperature. This results in higher energy bills – and more wear and tear on your HVAC system.
  3. A more comfortable home
    An unfinished crawl space affects your home’s everyday comfort. Are your floors cold? Is your main living area significantly cooler than an upper level of your home? Sealing and insulating your crawl space will help. After a short time in an uncomfortable home, you’ll wish you’d invested in upgrading your crawl space insulation.

You may have other questions about your crawl space. We welcome you to contact us to discuss your specific situation. Ready to upgrade the insulation in your crawl space? Contact us to schedule a free crawl space estimate.



Spring is Around the Corner! Time to Check Your Crawl Space

Spring is coming! That means more sunny days and warmer temperatures. It also means winter melting and spring showers.

Crawl Space Mold Insuation in Baltimore, MDSpring is coming! That means more sunny days and warmer temperatures. It also means winter melting and spring showers. Ensuring your crawl space is in proper condition is important to help keep water out and maintain your home’s structural integrity.

When getting your home ready for spring, be sure to keep these things in mind when checking your crawl space:

INSULATION

Properly insulating and conditioning your crawl space can help the floors in your home maintain a consistent temperature. If you choose to insulate your crawl space, consider spray foam insulation. Spray foam insulation insulates and seals cracks and other penetration points in one application. If you choose to completely seal your crawl space (also known as a conditioned crawl space) you could even add storage space to your home’s square footage.

CRACKS

Cracks can commonly form on the walls of a crawl space. You can help keep water and pests out of your crawl space by sealing these points. Installing spray foam can help by insulating and air sealing with one step.

DRAINAGE

Moving water away from your foundation will help keep it out of your crawl space. By ensuring water properly drains away from your home, it will find its own path away from your crawl space. If water pools around your home consider contacting a landscape architect or other professional to address issues with grading around your home.

Spring showers and winter melting will come soon! Now is the time to examine your crawl space. Contact our office to schedule a free estimate. Have other crawl space or insulation questions? Give us a call!

Three Things Missing in Your New Home

Insulate your New Home in Baltimore, MD

When building a new home there are many decisions to make! It’s easy to overlook preparing your home for extreme temperatures in exchange for things like choosing countertops, flooring and more.

Failure to give your new home’s energy efficiency the proper attention can cause problems like higher energy bills, equipment malfunctions, pest issues and more. If you’re building a new home, here are three critical steps to help make your home energy efficient and comfortable:

  1. Sealing Air Leaks
    Air sealing is one of the least expensive and most effective ways to help reduce energy loss and keep energy bills low. A leaky home can waste approximately 10 to 15 percent of a home’s heating dollars. Air leaks are found around doors, windows, wires, electrical outlets, ducts and more. Sealing these penetration points will dramatically increase the comfort of your home.
  2. Installing Upgraded Attic Insulation
    Fiberglass insulation is a great way to add R-value to an attic. Upgrading the attic of a new home with spray foam insulation will seal air leaks and add R-value with one step. Spray foam insulation can also minimize external sound bleed and add strength to your home.
  3. Sealing and Insulating Your Crawl Space or Basement
    An uninsulated crawl space or basement can have a huge impact on the comfort of your home. Both areas are in direct contact with the ground and any moisture. When your basement or crawl space is cold and damp, this can cause the floors of your home’s main level to be cold and dramatically affect your comfort. Properly sealing and insulating your crawl space or basement can pay off.

Don’t overlook these key steps of home construction. Your wallet and your family will thank you! If you are ready to insulate a new home, contact us for a free estimate!

Why Air Seal

Air sealing wallsWhen homeowners think of saving money on energy bills, they often think of upgrading their insulation. Insulation is a great way to reduce heat transfer and indeed is an important part of saving energy. Did you know that sealing air leaks is as important as insulating?

Here are just some of the benefits of air sealing:

  • Improved indoor air quality by helping to keep allergens and pests out of the home.
  • Reduced energy bills by keeping conditioned air (heated or cooled air) inside the home.
  • Reduced wear and tear on your HVAC system.

Air sealing involves sealing penetration points around the exterior of the home (also known as the envelope or “shell” of the home). This includes sealing gaps and air leaks in exterior walls (around outlet covers, etc.), windows, doors, etc.

Air sealing a home is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce energy bills and make your home more comfortable. ENERGY STAR estimates a homeowner can reduce heating and cooling costs up to 20% by upgrading their insulation and sealing air leaks.

Interested in air sealing your home? Contact us to learn more.

 

Four Ways Your Crawl Space is Affecting Your Home.

Happy-Family

Crawl spaces can create significant problems for homeowners. Is your crawl space insulated and air sealed? Here are four problems that can be lurking in your crawl space, and how insulating and air sealing can help.

1. MOISTURE DAMAGE
Drainage and plumbing problems can create significant problems in a crawl space. Moisture damage in crawl spaces go unnoticed and lead to a host of other problems! Moisture is the number one enemy of a crawl space. Air sealing and insulating your crawl space as well as ensuring proper drainage around your home can help eliminate moisture and the problems associated with it.

2. POOR AIR QUALITY
Although not included in your home’s square footage, the crawl space impacts your home’s interior and has a direct impact on the air quality inside your home. Building science shows airflow in a home naturally goes up, from ground to sky. As your home naturally breathes, moist air flows up and into the living areas of the home through unsealed penetrations points between the crawl space and the first floor of your home (points such as air ducts, wiring holes, holes around plumbing, etc). Any air quality issues in a crawl space are guaranteed to impact your home’s living area.

Have a family member with allergies, asthma or other breathing concerns? Problems in the crawl space like mold and odors can have a direct impact on everyone, in particular family members with these concerns. Air sealing and insulating your crawl space will improve the air quality will help keep these pollutants out of your home, helping to keep your family healthy.

3. CRITTERS
Your crawl space may be providing free room and board to some pesky tenants… and you don’t even know it! Crawl spaces are ideal for pests for a variety of reasons:

  • Damp environments create ideal living conditions for pests.
  • Any heating ducts that are leaking into the crawl space provide warmth during cold months,
  • Wet or damp wood framing provides an excellent food source for termites and other destructive insects.

Air sealing and insulating your crawl space will prevent access points to your crawl space, as well and eliminating these factors that attracted the pests in the first place.

4. LOST ENERGY DOLLARS
If the integrity of your home’s structure and indoor air quality aren’t enough to convince you to insulate and air seal your crawl space, consider what it’s costing you not to. An unfinished crawl space affects your monthly energy bills. An unsealed crawl space can lead to:

  • Cold floors in the winter
  • Uneven temperature between rooms
  • High heating and cooling bills

Your crawl space is a huge opportunity to save energy (and money)! By air sealing and insulating your crawl space you can reduce drafts, eliminate cold floors, keep your home comfortable, and save money on your energy bill each month.

Upgrading your crawl space is an investment in your home, your family’s health and can save money on your energy bills. What are you waiting for? Contact us to schedule your free estimate!