Summer Insulation Tips and Tricks

by Mark Row

Preparing for Hot Summer Days

The first thing you need to keep in mind is that summer insulation is as important and practical as proper winter insulation. Though different, both methods have a common ultimate goal – to keep your home protected from potentially harmful exterior effects, whether they include keeping the cold or the hot air outside. Now, if you are considering this issue seriously, you could always opt for some more drastic measures (like the one including adding insulation to your home) all the way up to some simple summer insulation tips and tricks.

First step – Proper Insulation

When it comes to summer insulation, you could start with the small things, that is properly insulate your doors and windows, since these often cause a lot of hot air to freely travel from the outside (windows) or from a room to room (doors). If insulating an entire house seems too costly for you, you could always pick a room and decide to turn it into a cool oasis, by simply covering and filling all those cracks and gaps in your windows and doors, which is a pretty easy and simple and usually does not require too much technical knowledge and craftsmanship.

The next thing you’ll need to do is identify the potential sources of heat within your home. This will help you determine which areas need to be covered and protected. If you have a wall that is constantly exposed to sunlight, it would probably be a good idea to try insulating such wall, either internally or externally. However, for all those of you that have an attic, this could be a very useful information – namely, some researches have shown that properly insulated attics can lead to over 40% save on electricity bills, so the answer suggests itself – you’ll need to summer-insulate your attic. If you have an easy access to your attic, this does not need to be a very complicated task. All you need is proper ventilation and adequate insulation material. This way, you will not only gain a multifunctional space, properly cooled or heated, but also prevent condensation (and mold and moisture issues that usually follow) and add a protective layer to your ceiling and the floors below, which can not be achieved with some alternatives (like placing a fan on the attic).

Before choosing the best material, first take into account the roof material, its color, your roofs pitch and ventilation, since these are all the tings that could affect your decision and the process itself. The equation is pretty simple – the lighter the roof (and its color), the greater the pitch and the better the ventilation equals less summer insulation and the other way around.

Now, let’s consider insulation materials. The most common solution is using rock and glass mineral wool products which are easily cut to shape and placed between the roof rafters, so you can basically do it yourself. Another valuable solution are reflective foils which work as radiant barriers, blocking the heat transfer. They will basically trap the hot air and reflect the heat away from the house, thus preventing it form getting inside and traveling downstairs.  

Summer Tips and Tricks

For all of you that think that adding insulation will take much money and time, do not despair, since there are some everyday, simple things you can do in order of keeping you home cooler. Firstly, try keeping your inner temperature stabile and constant by simply setting you thermostat at a certain level and keeping it that way during the summer, which will help your body accommodate to a specific temperature more quickly. Then, rather opt for installing fans than using your cooling devices, not only because they consume less energy (and are thus more economical) but also because your air condition needs to be properly cleaned and maintained in order of working properly. Besides previously mentioned sealing of all the gaps and holes in your windows you can add another insulation layer to your windows by wisely choosing a window treatment. We would recommend traditional wood blinds, not only because they look nice, but also because wood is a great natural insulator. Finally, choose halogen and LED lights whenever you can, since these are not only more economical, but also because they radiate less heat than incandescent or fluorescent lights.

If you are still wondering what will you get with summer insulation, let us add that not only will the thermal and acoustic performance be drastically increased, but your electricity bills will drop down more than you could imagine and you will have the chance to do something substantial for the environment (due to the fact that you will not have to turn your air condition that often).

For more information on summer insulation products please look at our related blog articles or send us your questions.