Warm, cozy, and full of character, you love your 1960 home.
As much as you love your decades-old abode, however, it tends to get drafty. In winter, the cold draft can get so bad that you’re beginning to see adverse effects on the health and comfort of your family. On days when it’s extra cold, moreover, your heating system has to work harder, costing you more in maintenance and replacement expenses down the road.
If you’re tired of putting up with drafty air and compromising your comfort, your most viable option is adding insulation. Insulating an old home not only makes the space more livable and energy-efficient but also helps preserve the house’s beauty and historical significance. If you decide on selling the home in the future, up-to-date insulation can give you a strong selling point.
Things to Consider Before Installing Insulation
While there are many benefits to adding insulation to old houses, it’s not exactly an easy task. If your home was built before the 1960s, chances are, there is very little insulation to none at all. Before the energy crisis happened in the 1970s, energy was cheap and abundant that it was more cost-effective to heat homes than to insulate them.
Today, it has become more cost-effective to insulate a home. There are myriad options as far as materials are concerned. Experts agree that among these materials, batts and blow-in cellulose are the easiest to retrofit into an old home. Many insulation contractors also prefer installing spray foam insulation, as this works well in regulating air flow, controlling moisture, and insulating while maintaining a high R-value (the material’s capacity to resist heat flow).
Depending on your home’s age, potentially dangerous products may have been used in the installation. A professional insulation contractor should be able to detect urea formaldehyde or asbestos, as the presence of these materials may entail remediation.
Where Do You Add Insulation?
It’s often easiest to add insulation to the attic area. If your attic is unfinished and unconditioned like many old homes, adding batt insulation to the underside of the roof is a smart move.
If the home has a basement or crawl space, you may also opt to insulate the floors of the living space above. Insulation contractors prefer to do this by installing batts into the floor joists’ stud bays.
Onboarding experts to assess the entire home should be your first step. A pro can accurately evaluate the scope of insulation, the severity of air leakage, as well as your options for re-insulation. They can also give advice or two in the areas of the home that will provide the most payback when insulated.
When in need of experienced professionals who can help you add insulation to an old home, turn to A+ Insulation. We have been the authority in batt, cellulose, spray foam and blanket insulation in Kansas City since 2004. We are prepared to add insulation to any part of the home from the walls to the attic, basement, and more.
Talk to one of our consultants about the most viable options for your home. Call us at 913-281-2250 or fill out our form today.