Best Way To Insulate Attic In Hot Climate

The spaces where you can t reach to insulate properly loose fill can easily reach.

Best way to insulate attic in hot climate. This is actually consistent with energy star recommendations see table. Hope the middle climate zones are tough because you have to split the difference between insulation techniques. The attic is almost always the best place to start with the biggest bang for your buck. The opposite happens in cold weather thus your improved temperature balance in winter.

Plan to pull up the flooring and layer new insulation on top of the old. Common practice in some areas still has it pegged at r 19. But if the floor is covered in plywood you can t stuff enough insulation beneath it to do the job sufficiently not even in warm climates. I discuss the different types of insulation you can choose and how to decide on the right one in a previous post.

It is a great option for attic walls and floors. Radiant barrier a radiant barrier is a material used in conjunction with attic insulation to reflect radiant heat at the surface and increase the efficiency of attic insulation. Spray foam insulation is by far the best type of insulation for hot climates as it has. Reverse stack effect in hot weather will create a highway of hot air from your attic into the house especially the upstairs.

While just adding more insulation to the building doesn t necessarily get great improvements in efficiency adding insulation to the right locations does. And yet for example our fresno calif franchise abc cooling routinely insulates attics from r 50 to r 60 in home retrofits. Another name of loose fill insulation is blow in insulation. Radiant barrier is a great option for hot climates as it doesn t try to slow the heat from passing.

Check out my other post insulation for a hot climate for some ideas for the other side of the coin. The best way to avoid the heat transfer from the roof and the attic into the living space is to use high levels of attic and roof assembly insulation provided by materials such as cellulose or rigid foams. Because the simplest and cheapest way to insulate an attic is to add material to the floor. A machine blows loose fill into the spaces filling each corner in the wall and floors to apply in every corner.

One of the best things you can do is to move the attic insulation so that the air conditioning ducts are inside the insulated envelope.