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How Does Spray Foam Insulation Affect a Home’s Energy Cost?

How Does Spray Foam Insulation Affect a Home’s Energy Cost?

While there are many different types of insulation materials on the market, spray foam insulation is one of the most effective. It protects your home against heat and cold so that you and your family remain comfortable year-round.

Here’s how spray foam insulation can impact your home’s energy usage and cost.

What is spray foam?

Spray foam acts as an insulator and an air sealant. It also has a high R-value, which is the rating system that's used to grade a material’s insulating properties. The R stands for resistance and refers to the amount of resistance a material has to temperature conduction. Products with high R-values work well to insulate homes.

This means that it can applied be to your home’s roof decking to slow the transfer of heat before it ever enters the attic.

Spray foam can also reduce your heating and cooling bills by making your home more energy efficient. You may even be able to cool and heat your home using a smaller HVAC system.

Spray foam savings

Spray foam will provide different savings amounts, depending on many factors, but most notably the age of your home.

Insulation codes have drastically changed over the last few decades. Newer homes built within the last 10-20 years have R30 insulation and will see lower cost savings because the base layer of insulation already works to protect against heat and cold.

Homes that were built in and before the 1990s, especially block homes, have no insulation in the walls. Injecting spray foam will provide a huge benefit, as there will now be a layer of insulation working to maintain the home’s interior temperature.

Roof deck savings

Newer homes or those with solid insulation can still benefit from spray foam insulation. Most will see a 10-15% reduction in their heating and cooling costs. For poorly insulated homes, or those with fiberglass batt insulation, applying spray foam insulation to the roof deck can reduce energy costs by 20-30%.

Wall savings

When spray foam is installed in walls that get two or more hours of direct sunlight, it can reduce heating and cooling costs by 15-25%. This mostly applies to homes built before the 1990s that have block walls.

Is spray foam beneficial for single and two-story homes?

When comparing home types, single story homes benefit more from spray foam insulation than two story homes. two story homes typically have twice the attic square footage, which means more space for outside air to come into the home.

Homes with little attic space and vaulted ceilings can’t be upgraded to spray foam. This is because it’s impossible to access the area without removing drywall.

If you have vaulted ceilings with a decent sized attic, an air barrier can be created between the ceiling and the attic. In this instance, some of the attic area will have spray foam and other areas will not.

What if my attic is already insulated?

One of the most common questions homeowners have is if existing insulation should be kept in place. We’ve found that homeowners save more money on their home’s energy usage when existing insulation is removed.

This is because of how insulation works. If the attic floor if insulation and spray foam is added to the roof deck, heat is trapped inside the attic all summer long. By removing the floor insulation, temperatures don’t increase as much, even on blazing hot days.

Choose Koala Insulation

Undecided if spray foam makes sense for your home? want to discuss it with an insulation professional first? If so, look no further than Koala Insulation.

We offer a clean and easy one-day insulation service! We provide a personalized on-site evaluation to determine which type of insulation best fits your needs and budget. Whether you need spray foam insulation, blown-in insulation, or batt insulation, you can count on us to help you make the right decision for your home.

Contact Koala Insulation today to discuss your needs.