Nearly every home in NY is under-insulated, and adding more insulation is one of the most important long-term improvements to energy use efficiency and to the comfort of your home, for both the winter and the summer.

Adding insulation to the attic is a relatively easy, relatively low cost way to add considerably to the comfort of your home while reducing energy costs. The second most important location to consider adding insulation is to your basement or crawlspace. Adding insulation to walls is more difficult than insulating either the attic or basement, and is not covered here .

Two things to remember:

• The benefits of insulation are substantially increased if you seal the air leaks in your home.
• CAUTION: If you do any insulation work in your attic be very careful to not block any ventilation system components. “Ventilate before you insulate!”

What you can do:

• Adding blown-in cellulose or fiberglass insulation on top of the insulation already present in your attic is relatively easy and inexpensive if you do it yourself. Homes in Central NY will benefit from adding insulation up to about 15 inches of fiberglass or blown in insulation in the attic.
• Be sure to insulate the access door or hatch to the attic. An uninsulated attic hatch door can be one of the biggest heat losers in an otherwise well insulated home.
• Over 20% of the total heat loss in a home can result from heat loss from the main part of the house to the unheated basement, if the basement is not insulated. If your basement is only used for storage, insulating the ceiling of the basement (just below the floor of the main living area) is another relatively easy, relatively inexpensive job (if you do it yourself) that helps make the home much more comfortable and can pay for itself in one or two years.

CAUTION: Be sure to seal all holes and cracks in the foundation and basement and insulate any water pipes in your basement if you insulate the basement ceiling (below main floor).

Savings:

If done in conjunction with air sealing throughout the house you can expect to save 10%-30% on heating costs, depending on how much insulation you already have, and how well sealed your home was before beginning this work.