A properly insulated home can be much more affordable to heat and cool. This is because insulating key areas of your home can prevent the loss of treated air and eliminate drafty areas or areas which are abnormally hot or cold. While many people think that the only efficient choice is the standard fiberglass insulation, the fact is that there are other environmentally friendly ways that you can insulate your home.

How insulation works

When we heat or cool our home, we are changing the temperature of the air in our home. Heated air will naturally try to mix with cooler air. In winter, this means that heat will be pulled out of our homes and in summer, the heated air outside will try and make its way inside. When you factor in the fact that approximately 50% of our energy use goes towards the heating and cooling of our home you can see why it is so important to stop this trend. Insulation forms a physical barrier that prevents the movement of air from one area to the next. When the air cannot escape, the heating or cooling effect that air has will not be lost either.

Insulation ratings

Not all forms of insulation are created equal. There are some forms of insulation that are meant for certain areas of the home. Certain types of insulating materials will also be better at trapping heated or cooled air than others will. This resistance to transferring heat is expressed as an R-value. The higher the R-value is, the more heat will be retained. If you live in an area where the climate is cooler you may be better off to choose an insulation that has a higher R-value. You will find that your home will cost less to heat as it is more energy efficient.

Green forms of insulation

There are new forms of insulation on the market that are environmentally friendly and extremely efficient at preventing heat transference. One of the most environmentally friendly is cellulose insulation. Cellulose insulation is made from plant fibers and can be used in either walls or roof cavities.

Other forms of insulation that are made from green materials include those made from mineral fibers, recycled newsprint and recycled blue jeans. There is also a new product on the market that is also made from minerals and is called air krete. It has a high R-value and also has acoustical properties that make it an excellent choice in areas where sound control is also an issue.

Insulation is something which can have a huge impact on your heating bills. A home that is not properly insulated will be one that is difficult to heat or cool efficiently and this can lead to a number of issues. The first is a massive heating bill. Because your furnace or other heating system will have to turn on more frequently in order to keep a room at a livable temperature it will use more fuel and your heating bill will increase as a result. If your furnace is running more frequently you will find that it may wear out more frequently and need to be replaced more quickly.

The kind of insulation is important

The kind of insulation that you use is important. There are certain products that are designed for use in certain areas of the home. If you do not choose the right product you will often find that it will not work properly and you will not be able to achieve the right level of insulation.

Some of the most common forms of insulation include batt or blanket insulation, loose-fill insulation and spray foam insulation. Depending on where you are trying to insulate you may find that one or more of these is most suitable for what you are trying to achieve.

How much insulation do you need?

This can be difficult to tell since it will vary from location to location. One benchmark to aim for is to insulate an attic to a depth that is more than 200 mm. This depth will allow you to reduce your heating costs on your home heating bill. The attic is a crucial area to insulate since heat rises and a large amount of heat can be lost through the roof of your home if it is not prevented from doing so.

Other areas that can affect your heating and energy bills

One area that many people do not consider insulating is the basement. You may want to look in your basement to ensure that the area under the floor is properly insulated. By adding insulation to this area you can often prevent air from entering your home or heat from escaping.

Another area where insulation can reduce heating bills is the area around your hot water heater. There are blankets on the market which can safely insulate a hot water tank or heater. By making sure that this is properly insulated you can prevent heat loss on an ongoing basis and can lower your energy bills by a substantial amount.

Changing window coverings can help you change the look of your home, but can they also help lower your heating costs? Many people do not realize that the curtains and blinds that they put on their windows can actually help them heat their home more efficiently. If you are serious about making your home more energy efficient you may want to think about more than just looks next time you go shopping for window coverings.

How window coverings can help

While curtains and blinds are not as effective at lowering heating costs as good quality windows can the fact is that the right choice can help offset your energy usage. This is because some types of window coverings can actually work to form a dead air space that traps heat and prevents it from escaping through windows. When used in conjunction with double-glazed windows a home’s energy usage can be substantially lowered.

They work by forming an additional layer between your home’s interior and its exterior. If less heat is able to reach the windows, less is available to be lost through glass. This, in turn, means that your home will not be as hard to keep warm as it would if the heat were allowed to simply escape unchecked.

What you should look for

If you are interested in purchasing window coverings that can help insulate your home you need to look carefully. There are blinds and shades that are structured like a honeycomb and which trap air. This trapped air provides the insulation your home needs to stay warm more easily. If you do not like blinds you may want to consider drapes that are made up of multiple layers that trap air. These will often be made up of a liner and a top layer. The air will be trapped between these two layers and will often provide the insulation you are looking for.

Window coverings to avoid

There are many types of window coverings that will not help insulate your home. Lacy drapes and those with single layers will not be able to trap the air and therefore will not be able to help prevent heat loss. Look for information on the labels that specifically state that a window covering is designed to insulate a home. This can be the first sign that you are on the right track and that blinds or drapes will be able to do what you need them to.

Cavity Wall Insulation could be a remedy for the energy poverty undergone by many homes in Ireland. Available statistics show over 60,000 low income and 160,000 other homes suffer from energy poverty. This invariably affects their health, indoor comforts while causing huge wastage of limited earnings. Insulation In general and cavity wall insulation in particular will help you if you are one of the above house holders.

SEAI offers special grants for up to Euro 400 to meet your home improvements by cavity wall insulation. The installations have to be carried out by qualified installers as special tools are required to carry this out. Under no circumstance this is a DIY job even for a person good with their hands.

Cavity walls

A cavity wall can be a construction of two walls with an air gap in between or a wall constructed of hollow blocks .The air gap in this manner should be continuous for any effective cavity wall insulation to be carried out.

How are the Cavity walls insulated?

The cavity wall insulation is applied in several ways depending on the type and construction of wall, type of insulation selected etc.  What ever the material selected the idea is to cut off heat transfer by cutting off the heat transfer primarily, by conduction ( ie. by physical contact) and  convection (ie. by the movement of hot air (molecules)  due to air currents) . Naturally unless there is a continuous cavity this process has limited detrimental affect as the heat by air movement is limited to a small wall cavity portion. (The conduction though not hindered in this scenario but is a slow process).

Thus the filling of the wall cavity by an insulation material addresses both these heat loss processes conveniently.

What material can be used to insulate cavity walls?

There are several insulation products which can be used for cavity wall insulation. Popular materials include Glass fibres, rock wool, expanded and extruded polystyrene (EPS and XPS) panels and beads and cellulose material. Though cellulose material is not very popular here in Ireland, in some countries such as USA it is widely used as it has a high R factor (at least initially), low price and made using recycled material and is therefore environmentally friendly). Each type has good as well as bad qualities, some having more of each than the others.

While during construction it is possible to insulate cavity walls with almost all the above material (though not done generally) after construction or in old buildings only polystyrene beads or glass fibres can be installed only by the special process of “bowing in”. The polystyrene bead insulation is done if during construction through the inside walls while it is done from out side walls in existing homes. Holes are drilled on the walls right through and checked whether existing insulation is present and if so in what condition. If the cavity is not filled, insulation beads or fibres are blown in through a hose inserted in through the drilled holes. A special adhesive is blown through along with polystyrene beads which keep the beads bonded after curing.

Moisture, air leaks and insulation

Moisture and, air leaks, though not the main cause has a role in the loss of home heat energy in addition to damaging the insulation, lowering insulation properties of the core fill, damaging the wall material and promoting mould growth. A good vapour barrier therefore should be applied even with cavity wall insulation. An aluminium foil vapour barrier applied with a water resistant adhesive or a liquid type vapor barrier are good solutions (regional fire codes permitting). In addition, an aluminium vapor barrier will act as a radiant heat barrier too improving the energy conservation further.

On the other hand the air leakage is not  advisable because with the leaked  cold out door air warm indoor air leaks out to neutralize the pressure built up in the indoors. Also t moisture too gets in along with the chilled air to condense on inner walls causing damages. (How ever it is difficult to totally eliminate these as some openings to outside as weep holes to drain out any leaked in water should be kept).

Greentech.ie is your friendly advisor on cavity wall insulation, grants available and all other related matters .For free consultation contact them on  call save 1890 245 345 for appointments. Kinggroup.ie is an approved and IAB registered Korefill brand polystyrene bead type cavity insulation installer in Ireland. They can be contacted on call save 045 838376 free advise.

How important is attic insulation in your home?

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI)  has an on going
scheme of grants called  Home Energy Saving Scheme (HES).

This scheme  would allocate Euro 250 if you retrofit your attic insulation, of course subject to
their terms and conditions (standard in  any such scheme).
If you wonder why only Euro 250 for this work, it is because this is such a simple,
low cost and easy bit of work which you can do for yourself if you are handy with similar work.
Of course if you need to claim the grant you need to be prequalified and registered as a trained
technician for the stipulated work, which unfortunately is a long, drawn out process.

But you must not let the simplicity and the low cost of the matter undermine the importance of the issue.

In the developed world up to about 40 percent of a country’s energy usage is in residencies and there too the biggest chunk (50 – 70%) is spent for space heating or cooling. Interestingly the green house gas emission in generating this energy is in much excess over that emitted by all the vehicles on the road.

Attic insulation is one area where the heating energy consumed goes a begging. Simply, we do not consider energy wastage can occur there and plugging it is so simple. In many of the older houses the attic or loft is not insulated at all. Even where there is insulation the material may be inappropriate or not thick enough to provide the necessary “R” value to block the heat transmittance adequately. Incidentally the “R” value of a material is its ability to resist heat flow through. The higher the “R” value the lesser will be the heat flow.

There are many good insulation material in the market. Examples may be Rock wool, Fiberglass batt or blanket, Poly urethane board, Expanded or Extruded Polystyrene insulation etc. Of these one of the best, durable material which is easy to install in the attic is fiberglass wool insulation.  A fiberglass insulation product (for example the well known Owens Corning Pink material) possesses a number of outstanding qualities such as:

• Made of  up to 50% recycled  material
• A range of thicknesses (158mm – 305 mm) where you can select the size you need for your application.ie to insulate anew or just top up the thickness s to make up your requirement.
• Preferred by home owners 7 :1 because it maintains it’s insulating property over time.
• Inorganic Fibreglas does not imbibe water.  Proprietary Pink insulation therefore will not hold water there by preventing permanent deterioration of “R” value.
• When properly installed Pink Fibreglas insulation does not settle or deteriorate maintaining the “R” value.
• The insulating material is non-combustible.
• The “R”- value will be variable from 19 to 38 depending on your requirements and the thickness.
• Available barefaced or with Kraft paper faced. The profiles will be as pre cut batts or rolls. The batts are available with widths varying 380 mm to 610 mm.

Insulation retards the flow of thermal energy through it, in or out, so that the heating or air conditioning system does not have to run as much as necessary otherwise, thus reducing the energy consumed by it. The Fibreglas insulation contains a thick network of fibres that entraps millions of tiny air spaces within it. The insulation therefore does not provide an easy and quick path through it for the heat flow, from the warmer to the cooler side (which is the case with solid material like wood, brick, metal etc.).

The human civilization today is vulnerable to the issues of energy.  The energy efficiency is critical in our social infrastructure may it be transport, Industry, indoor environment, construction, the development of renewable energy, recycling and environmental conservation.  The various advancements, R &D and bold decision making in this regard have positioned the energy efficient insulation product industry at the vanguard.

King Group of Ireland (www.kinggroup.ie / callsave 045 – 838376) is available at your service for any issues regarding Owens Corning Pink attic insulation, outsulation , cavity wall insulation, dry lining and all other types of  building insulations. Consult them free of charge on energy efficiency and conservation by appointment.

In the alternative Greentech.ie may be contacted on call serve 1890 245 345 for further information on how insulation can reduce your energy bills while protecting our fragile environment.

Masonry cavity walls in existing or new constructions can be easily filled with blown
in glass mineral wool fibres, polystyrene beads or polyurethane foam.
While all material have their advantages, glass mineral wool fibre is one of
the most popular still among users and builders of homes.
One reason may be that the insulation material is a non petroleum
byproduct and therefore more eco friendly.

The popular construction method with dual walls in the envelope is wide spread
in the dwellings in the northern hemisphere. Ironically most existing buildings are
devoid of any insulation except for the air gap. Where ever there is insulation, the cheap
material could have settled down losing it’s efficacy or else perished due to moisture and vermin.
With the skyrocketed energy prices you would have been paying unnecessarily for your home heating

all these years unknowingly due to this. With the EU directives for energy rating of homes
such as BER system of Ireland it has now become essential to have retrofitted (or new)
cavity wall insulation in existing and new houses.
While cavity wall insulation can be applied in slabs or batts with excellent door and
window seals, none is convenient and time saving as the blown-in insulation.

Equipment used and method
The cavity wall insulation of glass mineral fibre is fed into a purpose made blowing machine and injected in to the cavity under high air pressure through a flexible hose fitted with a tapered nozzle. Evenly distributed  holes of size 22mm to 25mm dia will be drilled through the outer wall  first to gauge the condition and properties of the existing insulation (in a retrofit).These same holes will be subsequently used for the new insulation fill.

A built in pressure transducer will sense the density and compactness of the fill to the desired settings and cut off the flow of insulation fibre and the pressurized air flow accordingly.

An important requirement is to carry out a survey before everything else and to determine the Insulation status (if any), position of flues, air vents, etc. Critical ventilation inlet/outlets such as those providing combustion oxygen or under floor ventilation, and all flues that run in the cavity wall, need to be checked and sleeves provided or else redesigned to prevent obstruction by the insulation being blown in.

An approved cavity barrier is inserted as necessary to isolate terraced or semi-detached properties and also to close all open cavities. A pattern of 22 or 25mm diameter holes are drilled in accordance with the approved code of practice as mentioned earlier.

In new constructions, holes are generally drilled through the inner leaf (wall) to the cavity and the insulation blown in, prior to plastering. In existing buildings, holes are generally drilled through the mortar joints in the external leaf and are made good with mortar and finished to match the existing finish.

Exercise caution
A cavity wall insulation should not be considered a DIY project unless you yourself are a skilled person. In Ireland there are expert contractors who are registered with the authority SEAI (eg. Kinggroup.ie etc.) who can be employed for such projects. There are several grants for retrofits while a BER is mandatory for your new buildings. If you are keen on obtaining any of these a contractor listed with SEAI is a must.

Greentech.ie is your friendly advisor on insulation of existing and new constructions. Their services will cost you nothing.

In a poorly insulated home the uninsulated loft (or attic) will let 25% of your building heating energy escape through the roof. It is shocking but this seemingly minor add-on neglected often by many (though for some it is only a DIY project on a holiday) will save so much money for you and energy for the country.

Why Loft (attic) Insulation is important
The loft of a house is the open unpartitioned space above the living space and below the roof. This large area is traditionally used for storing items that are not regularly used.

One peculiar property of insulation is that the property of insulation largely depends on the air pockets entrapped within. It could be that the existing insulation is perished. It may be that the insulation is crushed over the years and the air pockets are no more.
On the other hand it may be that the loft has not been insulated at all in the first place. Whatever it is if the loft insulation does not have at least a thickness of 270 mm of mineral wool  (or equivalent thickness of any  other insulation) you would have been wasting a quarter of heat energy used in your home  up through the  roof.

A simple insulation of the loft would save all that effectively. An insulated loft would act as a barrier against the escape of heat energy outward in the heating season while keeping off the unwanted outdoor heat in the summer.

What benefits can one expect from this exercise?
Apart from saving about a quarter of your total heating energy usage, the new application of insulation or “Topping  up” of the existing (to make up the required thickness) will also ;

• Will  heat your home more efficiently than before
• Less energy wasted means more energy saved and less CO₂ produced at the point of Power Generation.
• Less energy spent at your home for heating will reduce your energy bills
• Might make   you eligible for grants from SEAI.
• You will also contribute your mite to resist  disastrous climate change

Your loft insulation will provide these monetary benefits

The following estimated figures are based on insulating  the attic of a typical 3 roomed, semi-detached home with gas heating.
The figures may vary for your home due to numerous variations encountered in real life situations .The figures are reproduced here only to give you an idea of the economic (and environmental) benefits gained from loft insulation.

Item	Loft Insulation (0-270mm)	Loft Insulation (50-270mm)
Annual saving (EURO)	180	55
Installed Cost (EURO)	300	300
Payback (years)	2 approx.	6 approx.
Cost if DIY (EURO)	300 – 425	240 – 360
Payback if DIY(Years)	2-3	5-7
CO2 Saved/year (kg)	800 approx.	230 approx.

The effective life of insulation will be at least 40 years for mineral wool.  (Cellulose material of recycled paper and cotton material may not last that long). There is little doubt that the cost of energy too will escalate during this period .Therefore your insulated loft will pay you back many times over within this period.

Added advantage is that you can do the insulation yourself quite easily (if you are handy with that sort of thing) and save on the professional fees.

Grants and rebates
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has several grant schemes going for assisting those who wish to improve their home insulation. The Home Energy Saving Scheme or HES offers a grant of up to EURO 250 for attic insulation.

How can you get more advice on attic insulation?

Greentech.ie provides you free professional consultancy on loft (attic) insulation.

What is Insulation?

Insulation is any process or material that prevents energy forms passing from the excess side to the lesser side.
In the case of heat, thermal insulation provides a barrier between the hot side and the cooler side.

A good insulation will keep expensive heat energy within your home in the winter.
In the summer it will keep the energy consuming outside heat at bay.
There is no commercially available insulation which is 100% efficient.
In fact they only minimize the energy leakage.
These efficiencies vary widely for different material and so do the prices depending on several factors.

Some materials conduct heat more rapidly than others and are known as Conductors.
Those which are slow in this process are called Insulators.

Efficient home or commercial building Insulation material

There are many different insulation materials, some occurring naturally and some man made.
The man made or processed ones are superior in performance in our day to day applications.

Common Insulation Material – a typical example

MATERIAL	DENSITY (kg/m3)	CONDUCTIVITY (W/(m.K))	THERMAL RESISTIVITY(HRU)
	(p)	(k)	(r)
Polyurethane (Foamed)	32	0.021	47.6
Polystyrene (ExpandedBoard)	15	0.037	27.0
Corkboard	160	0.038	26.3
Mineral Wool	52	0.0.40	25.0
Fibreglass	11	0.042	23.8
Vermiculite: (Exfoliated,loose)	80	0.065	15.4

How do you gauge the efficiency of an Insulation material?

Insulation property of a material (or a built up structure) is measured by the use of following parameters:

• Thermal Conductivity (k) -
  refers to heat transfer in watts per every degree of temperature difference between opposite faces of a 1m cube.
  The unit of measurement is w/ (m.K).
• Thermal Conductance (C) -
  It is the Thermal Transmission through unit area (i.e. 1 m²) of material (or structure) for every degree of temperature difference between the hot and cold surfaces.
  The unit of measurement is w/(m².K)  ,
• Thermal Resistivity (r) –
  Is the reciprocal of Thermal conductivity (i.e. = 1/k).
  This factor refers to 1m thickness of the material only.
• Thermal Resistance (R) –
  It is the reciprocal of the Thermal Conductance (i.e. =1/C).
  This factor is applicable for any thickness of the material.
• Coefficient of Thermal Transmittance (U) value –
  The U value is similar to C value above and is measured in the same units w/ (m2.k).
  It is a measure of heat transfer through a whole building component such as a wall including the insulating property of the inside (still) and outside (moving) films of Air.
  It is the sum of reciprocals of all R values of a structural component.
  (i.e.=1/Total “R”).

Winter, summer or in between, a lesser “U” value will save money on your annual energy bills.

The subject of insulation is vast.
It may also sound a bit technical.
The bottom line however is saving   of your hard earned money now wasted.
SEAI, the Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland has rebate systems lined up for your investment in retrofitting your home insulation.