Will Insulation Make My House Cooler?

During the summer months, you may notice your electric bill – along with the temperature – rising quickly. Having your air conditioner running at all hours is not energy efficient and can put a large dent in your pocket. Insulating your home, however, can benefit you in the long run. Read on to learn why you should insulate your house to keep it cooler in the summer.

Heat always migrates to cooler places, never the other way around. In any air conditioned room in your house, warmer air from outside is constantly trying to move into that cooler space. If you run your air conditioner to keep your home cool in the summer, insulation can help keep hot air from making its way inside by creating a barrier. Good insulation can slow the transfer of heat through both convection and conduction. Convection is the movement of heat through air, while conduction is the movement of heat through physical contact. Because of these basic principles, insulation can do more than just keep your home warm by preventing heat from escaping during cold winter months. It keeps your home cool in the summer because it can prevent heat from coming into your home.

You may have heard that warm air rises, which is what’s known as the “stack effect.” This is true in the winter, when your furnace is warming your home during cold weather. Because that air that comes out of your vents is warmer than the cold outside air it is replacing, the warm air will rise to the top of your home. However, during the summer months, the opposite occurs. When the weather is hot outside, warm air does not necessarily rise. Instead, the outdoor heat enters your cool, air conditioned house in other ways. This is due in part to the fact that the sun beats down on your roof all day during the summer. Attic insulation can help prevent the hot air from creeping in by creating a strong barrier between the hot sun and your cool home.

Attic insulation is the best way to better insulate your home during the summer. While it can obviously help keep your home warm during winter, it does a great job of keeping hot air out during warm weather. If you are finding that warm air is making its way into your home, the attic is the best place to boost insulation if you discover your home doesn’t have enough when the weather heats up.