It’s morning, and the icy bedroom floor jolts you awake as soon as you step out of bed. A few minutes later, you’re walking down a drafty hallway into a bathroom that feels 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house.
Sound familiar?
Cold floors, drafts, and uneven temperatures are common problems for homes in Maryland and Delaware during winter. The good news? Better insulation can solve them.
Insulation traps heat, keeping your home warm, but a few batts in the attic won’t cut it for persistent problems like cold floors and inconsistent temperatures. For that, you need a targeted, whole-home solution.
At Total Home Performance, we use a science-based approach to assess your entire home, identify air leaks and insulation gaps, and deliver the most effective results. In this guide, we’re sharing our secrets for keeping your house warm in the winter with targeted insulation solutions.
How Insulation Works in the Winter
When it’s cold outside, heat will naturally try to escape through your walls, attic, and crawl space. This makes your house cold and it also drives up your energy costs because your heating system will try to compensate for the loss. Insulation reduces heat loss by creating a barrier that traps heat inside your home. The result is a warmer, more consistent temperature throughout your home and lower heating bills.
Don’t Forget to Air Seal
It’s important to note that insulation slows heat transfer but it can’t stop air. That’s a problem because air carries heat. To keep your home truly warm in the winter, you need to air seal before you insulate. Air sealing closes up all the tiny gaps and cracks in your attic and throughout your home that air can sneak through. We never skip this step and it makes all the difference for our customers.
Key Areas to Insulate in Your Home
We’ve been insulating houses throughout the Eastern Shore, Delaware, and Anne Arundel County areas for over 15 years. Through this experience, we’ve learned that there are three key areas to insulate in a house if you want to improve comfort and reduce energy waste:
1.Attic
Most of the heat that escapes your home in the winter goes out through the attic. Insulating and air sealing key areas like the attic floor joists, knee walls, and attic hatch will make a big difference when it comes to comfort and energy bills. But every attic is different, which is why we start with a thorough evaluation to determine where and how much insulation your attic needs.
2.Crawl Space
Air from inside your crawl space can get sucked up into your house during the winter, bringing the cold into your living spaces. Insulating your crawl space will help, but the best solution is a complete crawl space encapsulation. Encapsulation seals your crawl space off from the elements completely, protecting it against cold, heat, moisture, and pests.
3.Exterior Walls
Insulating exterior walls, including between living spaces and unheated garages, can make a big difference in your overall home comfort. If certain rooms in your home are never quite warm enough, they might need better wall insulation—especially if they’re part of an addition.
The Importance of a Whole-Home Approach
It’s easy to think about the different rooms and areas in your home as separate spaces. But the truth is that they’re all connected. When you make changes to one part of your home, it can affect other areas. Sometimes the effects are positive, like installing attic insulation to make your living spaces warmer. But sometimes, the effects are negative.
That’s why we take a whole-home approach to insulation and air sealing. Our team carefully evaluates all key areas in your home to find the root cause of your comfort problems so we can solve them at the source without causing any negative side effects. With over 15 years of experience insulating houses in Maryland and Delaware, we know what we’re doing. Our team can solve your home energy and comfort problems for good!