Common Mistakes in Overland Park Insulation Installation

9 Overland Park Insulation Installation Mistakes to Avoid

Brrrr . . . winter is coming, and if you're having flashbacks to the last cold season when you were shivering away in multiple sweaters while your furnace struggled to keep up with heating demands, this is the perfect time to think about Overland Park insulation installation. It's tempting to blame your furnace, but it may not be responsible for the problem. If your insulation has deteriorated to the point where it might as well not be there—or if it never was there to begin with—your furnace could operate all day and night and never manage to get your house up to your preferred internal climate. 

Inadequate or degraded insulation isn't just an issue in winter, though. It has a similar effect of reducing the energy efficiency of your home in summer, just in reverse—rather than failing to hold heat inside the building, it allows heat from the sun to come inside while you're running your air conditioner. In both those cases, the internal climate in your house is changed by heat transfer that can't be prevented by insufficient insulation. That means your HVAC system has to work much harder, which raises your energy costs considerably and ends up forcing you to pay much more than necessary on your monthly utility bills. Overland Park insulation installation can actually save you a significant amount of money over time by stopping heat transfer.

The most efficient and effective way to handle Overland Park insulation installation is by calling the team of insulation pros at Koala Insulation of South Kansas City. Our experience and expertise with insulation installation services means you don't have to worry about whether it's being done correctly and safely, and you can reap all the benefits of a perfectly-insulated home. But if you want to tackle it yourself, there are several potential pitfalls that you should be aware of. Here are 9 mistakes to avoid when working on Overland Park insulation installation.

1. Not Enough Insulation

One of the most common Overland Park insulation installation mistakes our crew uncovers in local homes is simply that insufficient material was used. Wall cavities that are only half full, or batt insulation that has large gaps alongside it because it wasn't wide enough to fill the entire space are not adequately insulated. Drafts and thermal energy movement can still take advantage of those uninsulated areas and drive up your energy bills. Regardless of what type of insulation you are using, make sure to fill the entire cavity. If there are gaps beside batts and they aren't big enough to fit another batt in there, request spray foam insulation services or use loose-fill insulation to fill the rest of the space. Another big advantage of making sure you've got adequate coverage is that it will go a long way toward noise reduction between rooms, so you don't have to hear every little whisper or bump from the next room.

2. Too Much Insulation

Based on the mistake we just outlined above, it may seem like there's no such thing as too much Overland Park insulation installation. However, that's not actually the case. When it comes to insulation installation, Overland Park, KS homeowners often discover the hard way that too much insulation can be just as bad as not enough. That is especially true with fiberglass insulation, which is made of fine, hair-like shards of glass material interspersed with air pockets. If you cram too many layers of insulation into narrow spaces, it compresses and eliminates those air pockets, drastically reducing its effectiveness at preventing heat transfer. Instead, let it lay naturally without shoving or squeezing it in—if you have to cram, it doesn't fit.

3. Forgetting to Seal Out Air Drafts

This mistake isn't even directly about Overland Park insulation installation, but it's still a critical error that has the potential to make all your insulation installation efforts more or less useless, depending on the condition of your house. There are places in your house where regular insulation can't go, and those places are vulnerable to air leakage that bypasses your insulation to cause heat loss that changes the internal climate in your house and lowers your energy efficiency. 

With a caulking gun in hand, go around the house and make sure window frames, door jambs, vents and other breaks or gaps in your exterior siding are filled in. Then, head up to the attic and take care of air sealing around the edges of lighting fixtures, wires, exhaust vents and other openings in the attic floor.

4. Blocking Air Circulation in Attic

While working on attic insulation installation, Overland Park, KS, homeowners need to be especially careful not to block any air circulation vents in the attic space. Attic insulation works somewhat differently than it does for other parts of your house. Your roof is designed to be able to get wet and dry out on its own with the help of adequate air circulation. Air comes in through soffit vents, which are located on the underside of roof eaves—if you stand next to an exterior wall and look straight up, you'll see soffit boards with holes or slats for ventilation. The air then travels through the space and exits through ridge vents at the crest of the roof. 

We all learned in elementary school that heat rises, and that means that a lot of excess heat gets into your attic space. Attic insulation covers the "floor" of the attic space, which is usually not a real floor but rather the ceiling joists and the topside of the ceiling for the story below. That prevents heat from getting through the ceiling and escaping out through the roof. But, if you block off soffit vents with insulation installation, it cuts off the air flow through the attic. As heat and moisture accumulate up there with no way to vent out, condensation forms and drips down from the rafters. This phenomenon is called attic rain, and it can cause major water damage problems that range from flattened, moldy insulation to rotting structural support beams.

5. Inadequate Space for Heat Sources

This mistake is a very serious one, because it can pose a risk to the safety of your household. Insulation can be highly flammable, and it shares space inside your walls with lighting components, electrical wiring and other potential heat sources. It's really important to make sure you give enough room around any type of electrical installation or wiring, including lighting fixtures, ceiling fans, outlets and wall switches, as sparks or heat could ignite your Overland Park insulation installation and send flames racing through the walls of your house. It's also important to avoid putting regular insulation around water heaters, oil burners and other types of heat-casting appliances—though you can insulate water heaters with purpose-built foil "jackets" to help them hold in heat and operate more efficiently.

6. Removing Old Insulation Unnecessarily

Houses are insulated when they're built, hopefully adequately, so if your property needs Overland Park insulation installation, it's probably a replacement rather than a brand-new installation. The word "replacement" can be misleading in some cases, because it implies that you need to remove the old material before you can put in the new insulation installation—but that's often not necessary. Homeowners can end up wasting valuable time and money throwing away insulation that is still usable, but needs to be shored up with additional layers of insulation. When you're putting in attic insulation, for example, it's often fine to simply add more material to what's already there, increasing the existing R-value to an adequate level.

That being said, there are some situations where removal is needed before Overland Park insulation installation can take place because the old material has been contaminated somehow. For example, attic insulation removal is absolutely necessary if you've had bats roosting in there, or a rodent infestation, because the material is sure to be contaminated with guano or rodent feces. It's also very necessary if your insulation has suffered water damage, because it is likely contaminated with mold or mildew that can compromise the indoor air quality in your home.

7. Wrong Side Facing Into House

Another fairly common mistake that our crew occasionally encounters when we get a look inside wall cavities is faced insulation that is positioned with the wrong side closest to the interior wall. Faced insulation is fiberglass with a vapor barrier of thick face paper. During Overland Park insulation installation, that paper needs to be on the side closest to the interior wall, not the side closest to the exterior wall. During cold months, moisture in the air can condense inside insulation, and the paper acts as a barrier to prevent it from seeping into your house and causing water damage problems such as softened, stained drywall and loose tape. If the barrier is on the wrong side, there's nothing to prevent excess moisture from getting into the interior of your house and causing trouble.

8. Removing Face Paper

Sometimes homeowners who are inexperienced with Overland Park insulation installation assume that the vapor barrier is part of the packaging and remove it altogether. For the reasons outlined above, this is definitely a bad idea. Keep the face paper on, and ensure it is positioned closest to the interior, inside the wall cavity.

9. Not Insulating Attic Door

Your attic may have a hinged door leading into it, or it may be just a small, removable panel that can be pushed out of the way to get access to the attic space. Either way, it's often neglected when it comes to insulation installation. Overland Park, KS residents who are concerned about keeping their home energy efficient should take the time to make sure the attic door or hatch is insulated as well, because a surprising amount of heat can escape through even a small uninsulated hatch. Along with insulation installation on the upper side of the door, add simple weather stripping around the edge on the upper side to prevent heat transfer through the cracks.

Why You Should Choose Professional Overland Park Insulation Installation

If the potential mistakes we outlined above make the process of Overland Park insulation installation sound surprisingly complicated for someone who isn't experienced with this type of work, that's because it is. Insulation installation that is done correctly requires training and expertise—it's not just a matter of buying mineral wool and throwing a piece of insulation up or placing a few fiberglass batts around. If you're not certain you can avoid all the pitfalls that could occur, it's a good idea to call the insulation experts at Koala Insulation of South Kansas City for professional installation.

You can rely on Koala, your local insulation company in Overland Park, KS, to work efficiently and effectively, paying special attention to building codes and areas that are prone to air drafts or moisture absorption. We can assess the state of your current insulation and offer educated recommendations on topics such as selecting the correct R-value (which is a measure of the material’s resistance to convective and conductive heat flow). 

In addition to American homes, our services apply to commercial buildings as well. If you're a business owner in Overland Park or other parts of the South Kansas City area, you can count on on us for expert insulation installation and other insulation-related services for your commercial space. Let’s improve your building envelope and reduce your expenses. 

Rely On Koala Insulation for Expert Overland Park Insulation Installation

If you are in Overland Park, KS or other nearby parts of the South Kansas City area such as Prairie Village, Lee's Summit or Roeland Park, you can expect outstanding customer service and trustworthy workmanship from the crew at Koala Insulation of South Kansas City. Our services include insulation installation, insulation removal, air sealing and much more. 

Contact us today by calling 816-929-8255 to learn more about our reliable insulation installation services for everything from spray foam to blown-in insulation, or to schedule an appointment for us to come out and evaluate the condition of the insulation on your residential or commercial property. Insulation projects are our joy! All the benefits of proper insulation are just a phone call away!