NW JACKSONVILLE Blog

How Is Insulation Added to an Existing Home in Northwest Jacksonville?

Adding Insulation To Your Home Without Impacting Your Space

1. Inspection & Evaluation

Scheduling a thorough inspection of your home’s insulation and air sealing helps you find cost-effective and environmentally friendly solutions. Some experienced homeowners have a general understanding of R-value needs, giving them the opportunity to check for deterioration.

Unfortunately, without the necessary experience, this DIY project won't be an effective practice for your household. Instead, scheduling a free evaluation with Koala Insulation of Northwest Jacksonville can give you a detailed breakdown of the current condition of your home's materials.

Our team of local experts uses thermal imaging and other industry practices to determine if your home has damaged, deteriorated, or improperly installed material. With the results of your free evaluation, we can help you and your household locate old material that should be replaced or choose new material that may provide better coverage.

1. How To Choose Your Material

Each insulation material has a range of benefits it may provide to your home when applied in the right places. Fiberglass batts, blown-in cellulose, and spray foam are some of the most common materials chosen for residential installations. You may already be familiar with some of their basic advantages, like temperature regulation and air sealing. However, did you know these benefits are affected by everything from your climate zone to the regular habits of your household?

Without the right team on board to provide expert advice, many homeowners make the common mistake of simply reinstalling the same kind of insulation. The problem here is that this habit doesn’t take the opportunity to consider what a different material may improve within the environment.

For example, if fiberglass batts were installed in between your ceiling joists before you purchased the home, a professional evaluation may reveal that a closed-cell spray foam could be a more effective replacement. This material is a strong vapor barrier and has a higher R-value per inch at an average of R-6.9 compared to an average of R-3.4 for fiberglass batts. When you research the needs of your home and consult local experts, your choices can start helping you save significantly more on energy bills.

1. Start In The Attic

When you understand more about the needs of your home and which materials provide the best benefits, it’s time to learn more about where the insulation needs to be added around the house. You’re likely already familiar with the insulation throughout the attic, even if you’ve only ever peeked around the area when storing holiday decorations or old boxes. The material here not only covers the floor but you can also find insulation installed between beams and ceiling joists.

When the material on the floor gets affected by water, pests, or other disturbances, your local insulation experts can typically vacuum the areas that have been impacted. Koala Insulation of Northwest Jacksonville then adds new blown-in material to return your R-value back to the necessary depth per inch.

Batts that are typically found on the ceiling and walls are generally easier to remove. This type of insulation can just be pulled out from between the joists. They can be cut and reshaped for reinstallation, ensuring they fit tightly between the beams and joists.

Spray foam insulation can be reapplied by a certified technician. The chemicals that make this material need to be properly mixed and applied with industry-certified equipment. If the spray foam needs to be removed, a scraping tool helps take off damaged or improperly installed materials. To reduce damage to the surface underneath, an experienced individual should handle this.

1. Make Your Way to the Basement

In the basement and crawl spaces around your home, the process to remove and add insulation is similar to what happens in your attic. The biggest difference is that you won’t necessarily find insulation on the ground.

The insulation here is installed along the walls but also tucked in between floor joists for the upper level. When evaluating the space, your insulation team needs to take into consideration exposed wiring, pipes, and beams before tucking in batt material or applying spray foam. We also prioritize air sealing in this area to reduce air leaks and moisture that may seep in from the ground.

On average, around 10% of heat is lost from underinsulated floors, making underinsulated crawl spaces a problematic area in many homes. Removing and reinstalling material in between floor joists or around pipes can be tricky, especially depending on your home’s access points. However, regularly maintaining this space is a crucial routine to ensure you have an effective vapor barrier that can prevent ice-cold floors and mold growth.

1. Don’t Forget To Check The Walls!

One of the last places that make many homeowners anxious about retrofitting insulation is the finished walls throughout their homes. Luckily, an experienced team of industry professionals has the best tips and tricks to make it look like our crew was never there.

With the right equipment, we don’t need to remove significant areas of the drywall to remove and reinstall material. A small hole can be cut into the exterior siding or along inconspicuous corner spots to add in certain materials, like blown-in cellulose. The cut-outs are then replaced, sealed, and can be repainted if necessary to restore the area.

While adding insulation isn't a difficult job, removing existing insulation can be a more skilled task. Part of the wall sheathing or drywall may need to be removed to gain access to the more significantly impacted insulation inside. For blown-in material, a technician can simply vacuum the loose fill out of the wall. Batts can be pulled out while any remaining debris is vacuumed. When the process is finished, the wall sheathing can be replaced and new material is installed.

Improving Your Environment With Local Experts

As a homeowner, one of if not your top priority is to ensure your house and those inside are well taken care of. When you hire a team of local experts, it’s important to have the guarantee that they’ll treat your space as carefully as they would their own. At Koala Insulation of Northwest Jacksonville, we treat every customer in our community like our personal neighbor. On top of offering free evaluations, we also strive to provide the best service and advice. We find the best solutions for you and your household that are also cost-effective and energy efficient.

To learn more about your insulation and air sealing needs, contact Koala insulation of Northwest Jacksonville today to schedule a free evaluation.