Household Insulation
Quick Tips
Many of us live in homes and work in buildings that are poorly insulated .This leads to a decrease in the level of comfort whilst at the same time an increase in the energy consumption to run heating/cooling systems depending on the season.
In a Passive House, the floor, roof and walls are all extremely well insulated as part of the requirements of a build. How well insulated is the house you are in right now?
Over the years we have asked this question, not only to potential clients but also to friends and family when they discuss their home comfort and heating bills with us. Surprisingly the answer is often that they are not sure.
So we thought it would be a good idea to simply put together a list of places to look at in your own home or the home you rent to find out where your heating bill(or cooling bill in summer) is going!
1) Find the service hole to your ceiling and safely have the area above your ceiling inspected for insulation installation. Make note of what you find. Depending on what you find, you could have sufficient or insufficient insulation or no insulation.The entire surface of the ceiling needs to be covered with insulation, with no gaps.
2) If your house has been built on stumps, you then need to find a safe way to go beneath your home, or at least view beneath your home to see if there is any insulation between the floor joists. Again, make note of what you find. Depending on what you find, you could have sufficient or insufficient insulation or no insulation.The entire undersurface of the floor needs to be covered in insulation, with no gaps.
3) If your home has been built on a concrete slab, you need to check to make sure that some sort of insulation to the slab has been done, such as edge slab insulation.
4) The walls can be much more difficult to check unless you are part way through a renovation or a new build where you can determine what is going into your walls. Sadly many areas in a home’s walls are insufficiently insulated without the occupants ever really knowing!
Correctly insulating a home is a relatively simple thing to do when building a home, yet when overlooked can be difficult to rectify in some homes. That is why it is important to really understand what you are getting when purchasing a home or engaging a builder when energy efficiency and comfort is a priority.
Thermal Insulation is one of the 5 core principles of designing and building a passive house.
The end result of a home built with Passive House principles will be a healthy, comfortable, energy efficient, long lasting home.
This topic and many more will be dealt with in more detail in our membership which is coming very soon!
If you would like to learn more about Passive House Principles and how we use them in every single house we build, please click on this link to learn more about our membership