I’m back out on The Kuppersmith Project and I’m with Eric Small from Icynene spray foam insulation. They’ve provided all of this funky foam insulation all over the Kuppersmith house. A lot of people are interested in it because you hear the statistics and about how much money it can save you on your energy bill.
Eric says it’s different from traditional fiberglass insulation because, “The magic of foam is its ability to insulate from conductive heat transfer and at the same time air seal because it’s an air barrier. So, it’s also controlling heat transfer due to air movement or convection. Neither fiberglass nor cellulose address air movement; they are both air-leaking materials. Couple those two together, and now you have a really high performance insulation system.”
It really creates that envelope that we always talk about with the home. A lot of people are surprised that you don’t have insulation in the flat part of the attic. And Eric and I were talking earlier that if you walk into an attic in the middle of the summer, especially in Mobile, AL, you don’t stay there long. But with foam insulation, there will only be a 10-12 degree difference, or less, between the attic and the conditioned space.
Eric says, “It’s pretty dramatic. Most people have experienced a typical ventilated attic during the summer when it might be 140-150 degrees. It smells bad, and it’s nasty because of the accumulation of dirt, dust, pollen and other particulates that penetrate into the attic. It’s pretty dramatic for people to walk out into an attic like this in the middle of the summer and it’ll be 80 degrees versus 140.”
This would be fantastic for someone who wants to utilize space like this for a little extra storage, and like Eric says, “If you store your Christmas candles in this attic, they won’t melt.” You can find out more about Icynene at icynene.com.
