Seven Signs Your Home Needs Insulation

Most people do not call an insulation contractor. They call an HVAC contractor, get a new system, and discover that the room over the garage is still cold. Here are the signs that point at the envelope rather than the equipment.

1. One room that has never matched the rest of the house

The bedroom over the garage, the room above a cantilevered bay, the addition, the finished attic space. If a single room has been wrong since you moved in, and no amount of balancing has fixed it, the problem is almost always a thermal bypass in that room's specific geometry, not the system that serves it.

2. Drafts at outlets and baseboards on windy days

If you feel air at an electrical outlet on an exterior wall, that wall cavity is connected to outside. Wind-driven drafts are the clearest sign of open wall cavities, and they are what injection foam exists to fix.

3. The system runs constantly but the house never quite gets there

An HVAC system that runs and runs is usually not undersized. It is correctly sized and losing the fight. In summer that is a superheated attic pouring into the ceiling. In winter it is stack effect pulling conditioned air up and out.

4. Cold floors over a basement, crawl space or garage

Floors that are cold underfoot in winter point at the rim joist and the floor assembly. The rim joist is a small area that leaks disproportionately, and it is one of the cheapest fixes on the list.

5. Ice dams, or frost on the underside of the roof deck

Both mean warm, moist air is reaching the attic. See our guide on what causes ice dams.

6. Dust streaking on the insulation surface

If you look into the attic and the insulation has grey or dark streaks in places, that is filtration staining. Air is moving through the material and depositing what it carries, which tells you exactly where the leaks are. Insulation is not a filter, and if it is acting like one, the ceiling below it is not sealed.

7. Bills that climb faster than rates explain

Energy prices move, so some increase is expected. What is not expected is your consumption climbing while your habits stay the same. That usually means the envelope is degrading: material settling, a critter getting in, or a bathroom fan installed three years ago that nobody sealed around.

What to do about it

Do not go crawling around your attic to investigate. Attic joists are the only safe footing, the insulation hides them, and people put a foot through the ceiling every year. Older homes may have live knob-and-tube wiring, and recessed light housings have clearance requirements that are not obvious by looking.

The free visual energy audit covers the attic, the accessible walls, the rim joist and the crawl space or basement, and you get a written summary of what is deficient whether or not you hire us.