Insulation is one of the best ways to keep your home warm in the winter and cool in the summer. This is because insulation works to keep the air inside your home from escaping, or the air outside from coming in. But how, exactly, does it do this? Here we go through everything you need to know about insulation and why it’s important for your home.
Heat transfer
Before we get into insulation, we first have to discuss heat transfer, or, how heat travels from one place to the next. There are three ways that heat travels, all of which affect how warm or cold your home ends up being:
Radiation
When heat travels in a straight line, warming cooler objects, this is called radiation. Main types of heat radiation come from the sun or from a heater.
Convection
Convection occurs when warm air rises and cool air falls. It happens largely in enclosed spaces such as our home.
Conduction
When you touch a hot pan on the stove, the heat that transfers from the pan to your hand travels via conduction. The denser the material, the easier it is to conduct heat.
How insulation helps our homes
Insulation is all about minimizing and/or slowing all three types of heat transfer. In other words, it prevents the sun from heating up your home in the summertime; it stops the warm air from staying just up on the second floor; and it reduces the chance of the freezing ground making your flooring cold. It does this by acting as a barrier between your living spaces and the outside world. In addition, there are several different types of insulation that work in different ways to keep your home properly warm or cool. For example, foam insulation boards slow conduction through roofs and walls, while spray foam prevents colder outside air from coming inside through drafts.
In a place like Buffalo, keeping our houses warm in the colder months can be difficult, but it can be done with the proper insulation. At Ivy Lea Construction, our home insulation installations can help to keep your home comfortable all year round. Give us a call today at 716-875-8654 to learn more.
