Why You Should Insulate in the Summer

Summer is right around the corner here in the Minneapolis and St. Cloud, MN areas, and many residents are doing everything they can to ensure that they’re ready for the hot weather to come. While AC maintenance or purchasing brand new cooling systems are both effective ways to prepare, one important aspect of home cooling that often gets overlooked is insulation. If you think it’s just for winter, you’re not alone.

Most commonly associated with the colder months of the year, insulation actually provides year-round benefits for your home. Just as insulation keeps warm air from escaping during the winter months, it’s also a crucial tool for ensuring that cold air doesn’t escape when it’s hot outside during the summer. Since 90% of homes throughout the U.S. lack proper insulation, there’s a good chance that YOUR home could benefit from an upgrade.

Sealing the Building Envelope

One of the most important factors that can influence whether or not a home is capable of properly holding conditioned air is the building envelope. Essentially, the building envelope is what separates your home’s conditioned (heating and cooled) and unconditioned spaces. Take the garage, for example, which is unconditioned and typically home to various toxic chemicals and fumes. If the building envelope isn’t properly sealed, these can leak into your home’s conditioned living spaces.

The solution to problems associated with a poorly-sealed envelope is to use air sealing along with high-performance insulation. While each of these home performance upgrades is useful on its own, they are synergistic when combined and can play a major role in ensuring that conditioned air doesn’t escape your home.

The Benefits of Insulation Upgrades

As you might expect, upgrading the insulation in your home can result in a number of different benefits, including:

• 
  Lower Utility Bills
  
• 
  Longer Lifespan for HVAC Equipment
  
• 
  Better Indoor Air Quality
  
• 
  Increased Home Comfort
  
• 
  Increased Resale Value
  

At RetroGreen, we take energy efficiency and home performance seriously. We take a “whole home” approach to every job, no matter how large or small it may be. After countless installations, we’ve seen firsthand exactly how much of a difference insulation upgrades can make, especially when it comes to keeping conditioned air from escaping during the summer months. We’ll answer any questions you may have and take your budget and needs into consideration when developing a plan, all with boosting home efficiency in mind.