Insulation! Gotta Have It!

After living in our Crofton, Maryland home for over 24 years, with very little attic insulation and many complaints that folks living here or visiting us here are “freezing,” we bit the bullet to hire a company and put in proper insulation. It’s not cheap. It’s a necessity though for so many reasons. One could say (or is it just me saying that?) we’ve been heating the whole street for years since so much of our heat was escaping through many holes and various hatches found in the roof and surrounding areas. 

While watching the company we hired beginning last week, it’s a dirty job. Anyone coming in and out of the house were in white “bunny suits” AKA hazmat suits. They removed all the old insulation to a tune of 100 industrial sized garbage bags. Luckily, it wasn’t too thick because most of it had deteriorated, more or less, over the last almost 50 years. The house was built in 1974 - a rancher style with no basement and a huge and wide attic. Oh, sure, there was some extra batting-type insulation thrown around for good measure from the previous owners, but nothing that would help save the heat and heating expenses through the years. 

I’m giddy about, not only saving a few bucks on the heating bill, but being more comfortable all around - winter and summer. Anything has to be better than what we’ve had to get used to for far too long. The whole process has turned to a four day job; totally understandable now. 

As I thought more about insulation of our home, I began thinking about our own bodies insulation. Fat (called adipose tissues) insulates our bodies from an organic place when exposed to cold temperatures. Clothing, like wool, down, and other animal fibers, can help keep us warm too which is a kind of insulation against the cold for sure. Sheep wool is one of the best animal insulators of all time. Also insulating our bodies are plant-based insulators: hemp, cotton, cellulose, wood fibers and cork. 

My mind then wandered over to animals and their insulation from the cold. It is the arctic foxes, in winter, that insulates them from the bitter cold more effectively than the fur of any other animal in the world, including the polar bear. I have to admit though, it was the polar bear that first popped into my mind about being the one animal with the best insulation. I’m sure they are not too far behind in the insulation category from icy waters, extreme cold and the expansive tundras that is their playground than those beautiful arctic foxes.

I cannot wait to see if insulating our house “properly,” (we chose the blown in kind with foam around all the duct work) will be noticeable. They say it will be. I’m hoping on that promise since this new insulation, unlike us or an animal, will act as a protective barrier between us and the outside world.

Fingers crossed to a new era of insulation in keeping the heat in and the cold out. 

BSoleille! The bright side of a warmer house in winter and cool/er house in summer! 

Terri

Attic insulation prep work in action