Attic Insulation

Proper attic insulation is critical for maintaining a comfortable temperature in your home. Insulation traps heat trapped inside your home during winter. Meanwhile, insulation allows air to circulate. Thus it helps to ventilate your house, avoiding overheating in summer.

Owens Corning’s attic insulation provides many advantages, including cost savings, maintenance benefits, and increased comfort. 

A properly functioning roof requires more than shingles. Indeed, your roof is a system! A correctly ventilated roof and proper attic insulation keep your home cooler and energy efficient. Likewise, a well-insulated attic can help you save up to 20% on your electric bills.

How Does Insulation Attic Work?

Have you ever considered how insulation works? Heat always moves towards cold. So, it tries to escape your home in the winter and enter it in the summer. 

Fiberglass insulation traps air within tiny pockets to prevent heat from transferring into or out of the home. 

What is the R-Value in Attic Insulation?

The “R-Value” measures the ability of insulation to resist heat transfer. The higher an insulations R-value, the better will be its capacity to resist heat flow. The R-values do not directly relate to the insulation thickness. Yet, they depend on the insulation density. That is the number of insulation fibers per square inch. 

The greater the insulation thickness or density, the more air pockets it contains. Thus, the higher the R-value will be. 

Then, a crucial question comes to our minds: 

How much attic insulation do we need in Tennessee? 

The DOE (Department of Energy) recommends R49-R60 insulation in Tennessee and Mississippi. To achieve an R-60 rating, the attic of a home will need 19-20 inches of blown-in insulation.

How do you know if your house needs more attic insulation? Go into the attic. If you can see the rafters, the home probably needs more attic ventilation. But one of the Kreunen Construction experts can tell you the right amount of insulation for your house. Different geographic locations across the United States require different amounts of attic insulation.

The DOE recommends R-60 for the southern region. Attic insulation is a year-round product that slows the heat flow from warm to cold areas regardless of the outside temperature. A home with enough insulation will be more comfortable. Besides, it will reduce the need for using air conditioning, reducing heating and cooling costs.

Attic Ventilation: More is Better

To ventilate an attic, you need two types of roofing vents. Intake vents on the eve of the house bring outside air into the attic. Moreover, exhaust vents, usually at the ridge, expel the hot air from the attic. If you do not have both, you do not have attic ventilation.

The rule of thumb for attic ventilation is 50/50 intake to exhaust, but 60/40 would be ideal. The 60% should be intake at the house eves. 

Many people wonder, “I heard more is better, so let’s add more roof ventilation.” But more is not always better! You can make mistakes with your attic ventilation. The DOE recommends a 1/300 rule. This rule is simple: for every 300 feet of attic flooring space, you need 1 square foot of free ventilation area. 

Many building codes have 1/150 regulations. If you can squeeze in a 1/150, that is fine. Many modern roofs have a little ridge to add a ridge vent to. Thus, venting a contemporary attic is more difficult. Today’s modern homes have many 10/12-16/12 pitches with many facets. This fact complicates getting proper roof ventilation.

Common Mistakes in Attic Ventilation 

Adding several types of exhaust roof vents is a common blunder. 

For example, many people improve ventilation by adding turbines (whirly birds) and ridge vents. But, they don’t know this mistake causes a roof ventilation short circuit. Suppose someone has a complete soffit and ridge vent system and adds vents halfway up the slope. Instead of improving his ventilation, he has reduced the roofing system’s capacity to exhaust hot air. 

Your hot air will exhaust halfway up the slope, leaving a part of your attic improperly vented. Another issue with this approach is that air may be drawn in at the vents halfway up the slope. So, this will reduce the air intake at the house’s eaves.

Why Is Proper Attic Insulation Necessary?

Attic insulation and ventilation must collaborate with the roof structure to keep comfortable indoor temperatures.

High-quality attic insulation systems, such as the Owens Corning Top of the House system, provide homeowners and residents with the following advantages:

Increase energy efficiency: You will use less energy to heat your home with proper attic insulation. Thus, you will pay less for your energy bills!

Reduce your carbon footprint: The energy buildings use is the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions. The surface of a home that leaks the most heat is the roof. Hence, you can prevent energy loss by installing insulation in the attic. This way of reducing carbon emissions and helping the planet is simple and inexpensive.

Greater roof longevity: Proper attic insulation can avoid moisture and ice dams to develop on the roof. So, it protects shingles, extending their life.

Why Is Attic Ventilation Necessary?

Insulation is crucial for keeping heat inside the home. But it is also necessary to promote ventilation. Without adequate ventilation, moisture can accumulate in an attic space, causing the following issues:

• Sagging roof deck: Deck sagging can occur after only a few years of poor ventilation, making the deck dangerous to walk on. Deck deflection appears to sump in the decking. Because of the higher humidity, the decking sags between the rafters.
• Dry rot: The moisture that cannot escape from the attic causes condensation and can lead to rotting plywood decking.
• Water condenses on metal objects such as nail heads in the attic. Then, rust forms on the nail heads, causing them to fall off. Rusting can cause metal straps holding plumbing or HVAC ducting to break. This issue results in the ducting or pipes crashing down through the ceiling or onto the ceiling joists. This problem occurs more in humid climates.
• Insect infestation, mold, mildew, fungi, and spores: These microorganisms cause health issues and damage to the house’s structure.
• Reduced R-value of insulation: This means the insulation is not as effective at maintaining your home’s internal temperature as it should be. A home without proper attic insulation will have moisture in the attic. This moisture reduces the insulation’s effectiveness by becoming trapped in it. 
• Ice dams: Snow that melts and refreezes at the roof’s perimeter can back up under the shingles, causing leaks. You can end ice dams with a Cold Roof Assembly, which combines proper ventilation with heavy insulation.

Attic ventilation is critical because many home appliances produce moisture that accumulates in the attic. Washing machines, dishwashers, bathtubs, showers, and tumble dryers all generate water vapor. 

This vapor should exhaust through the roof, as it can cause condensation inside the attic. Sometimes, homeowners can mistake this condensation for roof leaks.

• Static vents 
• Power vents 
• Ridge vents
• Turbine vents
• Soffit/cornice vents
• Gable vents
• Starter vents and 
• Cupola vents