DALLAS Blog

Can Existing Walls be Insulated?

If you live in an older home, you may find that walls are drafty and don’t hold temperature well. Is it possible that your walls don’t have any insulation in them? If your home was built in the 1960s or after, it is unlikely that it has no insulation.

In Dallas and most parts of the country, a home builder is required to insulate all exterior walls, however, if a remodel was performed and the job was done without a building permit, the contractor could have taken a shortcut and left out insulation.

How do you confirm that you have insulation in the walls? There are two ways to test the walls without opening them up:

1. A FLIR thermal imaging sensor will create a “picture” of the temperatures in the wall. A large difference between insulated walls and non-insulated walls can be seen using this tool, giving a strong (but not definitive) indication of insulation or lack thereof. Koala Insulation professionals have FLIR sensors and can, for no cost, take an energy picture of your home.
2. Choose a spot in your wall that is not very visible, such as inside a cabinet or a closet, and, using a power drill, drill a hole through the sheetrock using a small-bore bit. Fully insert the bit and pull it out. If you have fiberglass insulation, there should be threads tangled around the bit.

If you determine that there is insulation in the wall, even if inadequate, there is not much that can be done to improve the situation without opening up the wall, removing old fiberglass and replacing it with new fiberglass batts, cellulose or spray foam.

If, however, you determine that there is no insulation in the walls, Koala Insulation can perform a “dense pack” of loose fiberglass or cellulose by packing it into every cavity between each stud. The process is simple – our technicians drill a 3 inch hole between each stud cavity across all walls in question. They then feed a hose through the opening and all the way to the bottom of the cavity. The insulation blowing machine then blows loose insulation from a hopper in our truck, through a hose and into the wall. The hose inside the wall cavity is moved around the cavity until the cavity is fully packed with insulation. The process is repeated in all wall cavities.

After the insulation is blown-in, a drywall repair specialist replaces the drywall holes that have been cut out and tapes, beds, textures and paints the wall, making it look like new.