Canada, Home Insulation, and Improving Your Comfort
January 17, 2020
In Canada, home insulation means owning more comfortable home with lower energy bills. It also means a healthy home in every season, regardless of what our Canadian weather is like outside. It is also means your home is air sealed, reducing drafts and leaks both into and out of the home. But what if your home is not well insulated? Knowing how you and your family really feel in your home can help you know how to fix the problems you are having.
Take a minute to really think about how you and your family feel in your home. Do you need to walk around with a blanket just to keep warm in the winter? Does your family complain about having cold feet? Do you avoid the air conditioner in the summer because you fear how high it will make your energy bills? You might think that fixing these problems is impossible or will cost far too much. This article will hopefully prove otherwise.
Canada Home Insulation & Seasonal Changes
In Canada, our home insulation needs change as drastically as our seasons can. In the fall, we feel the dampness and the cold entering our homes and our living rooms. In the winter, the dry, cold air makes our teeth chatter as we crank up the heat and burn what money we have left after holiday shopping. In the spring, those of us with allergies are afraid to open the windows for fear of letting any rogue pollen infiltrate our bedroom sheets and our couches. In the summer, we tend to run to our homes to beat the heat only to end up beating down our bank accounts.
In some cases, we might think that our homes are perfectly fine the way they are, or that there is nothing we can do about it. We just learn to live with it. However, many of our homes were built when building codes were much more lenient. There may be little to no insulation in your walls and attic. If there is attic insulation, it might be too old to effectively provide a high R-value. As the Ontario Building Code moves closer to Net Zero, Canada’s home insulation efforts lead the way in changing how we protect our homes from the temperatures outside.
Where to Start with Home Insulation in Canada
Knowing where to start with improving your home comfort can be daunting. It is not like a renovation you can see, such as painting your living room a warmer colour, but we all know that is not actually going to make it any cozier. Instead, here are a couple of simple ways to help you figure out where to start. It is also information that you can pass on to your home insulation specialists (such as Great Northern Insulation).
- Take Out A Notepad and Walk Around Your Home
Let your home speak to you. Really. Do you hear any windows whistling? Or do you feel the need to turn up the heat (or AC) in a certain room? Does your finished basement feel more like a cold, damp cellar? Note down how each room makes you feel. If you live with anybody else, ask them how they feel in each room of the house too.
- Take Out Your Energy Bills
If you are not in the habit of keeping your energy bills, now might be a good time to start. It might be possible to lower them significantly with the right insulation upgrades. By taking them out now and setting them aside, you can compare them to the energy bills you receive after your insulation upgrades are performed. This way, you can calculate exactly how much you have saved.
Areas of Your Home to Ask About
No two homes are the same, but there are some common areas that can usually benefit from getting upgraded insulation. Every insulation inspection starts with your attic and ends in your basement or crawlspace. The insulation specialist who visits your home should carry their own checklist with them, and be able to tell you what they are looking for and what they have identified.
For most Canadian homes, better attic insulation is likely the first place you should turn. It is notorious for letting the heated air in your home escape during the winter. In most cases, it is also a very affordable first step to improving the comfort of your home that reaps a lot of reward. In fact, it could save you an estimated 10-50% on your energy bills. It is very important to remember that your attic is affected by more than insulation. Air leakage is a major culprit for uncomfortable homes.
At Great Northern Insulation, we provide almost every solution you can think of. We can air seal common areas that suffer from air leakage, or manually identify and seal key air leakage areas in your attic, and then install loose fill insulation evenly across your attic floor. We can also spray your entire attic floor with spray foam insulation to maximize air sealing, and then lay loose fill insulation over it. You can read more information about how we can help with attic insulation here.
Right now, you can take advantage of attic insulation and air sealing to get more money back through the Home Efficiency Rebate. First, get a free estimate from us. Then, have a Registered Energy Advisor participating in the program, such as a representative of Barrier Sciences Group, conduct a home energy audit. When working with Barrier Sciences Group, they will verify your eligibility in the program and the rebate amount you may be able to receive.
If you would like to learn more about home insulation in Canada, more about attic insulation and air sealing, or rebates through the Home Efficiency Rebate offer, you can contact us here or fill out the form below.
