If you’re searching for “thermal envelope” you are trying to understand how to make your home as energy efficient as possible. This post will help improve your understanding the thermal envelope of your home.
Contents In This Post:
- What Is Thermal Envelope?
- Understanding Heat Transfer
- Whole Home Efficiency
- Insulation & R-Values
- Air Barriers
- Choosing Thermal Envelope Solutions
Making your existing home energy efficient or building you a brand new home will present plenty of challenges. You have to think about the shape and size of the building as well as how it will be cooled and heated. Ensuring that it has the right insulation by using the right type of materials with correct thermal properties will help to make the environment efficient and comfortable.
When you are sealing the home for efficiency, you need to address the envelope is important. This will be the layer that will separate the conditioned living area from the outside space. It is basically the heat flow control layer.
What Is Thermal Envelope?
When the thermal envelope is discussed, they are talking about the space where heat will rise in the home and be trapped, normally the ceiling. The attic is often considered to be outside of the thermal envelope. However, attention to insulating and sealing the space in the home could also mean big returns in coziness and value.
Understanding Heat Transfer
Picking the right type of insulation and air barrier may help to provide good returns for increasing the efficiency in your home. Understanding just how air works can help to provide you with a way to make a good choice.
During winter, we often wear hats because heat leaves the top of you. Its similar to your house. The more that you use the air barrier with a good R-zone based on the climate in your area, it will increase efficiency in your home.
It is because of this efficiency that you may find that your HVAC system doesn’t need to be large, which saves your money on your energy bills.
Whole Home Efficiency
When you are building a high efficiency home or making your home efficient, you should take several practices into consideration. You need to pay attention to buying the best insulated windows, correct size of a HVAC system, and having the right insulation – especially in the attic where heat escapes and is trapped outside of the living space. The best insulation should be the one that fits your home and has a high R value.
Insulation & R-Values
R-value is a measurement for thermal resistance. The higher that the R-value is, the higher the thermal resistance will be. Basically the higher that the R value is, the cooler or warmer your house will be.
When you use spray foam insulation you will get about a R-7 per inch. When you go up the law of returns will apply. There will be a certain point when the insulation that you add doesn’t make a difference if the air barrier isn’t properly worked.
You will be removing the unwanted air from the outside. If you look at it that way, you are going to have an efficiently sized HVAC system, since you don’t have to worry about air leakage.
Air Barriers
Insulation and air barrier shouldn’t be confused. Both are a part of becoming an efficient home. The benefits of spray foam are a way that they can be covered at the same time.
Air barriers prevents or helps to prevent unwanted air from entering your home and it prevent conditioned air from escaping your home. Spray foam insulation can do this by providing an air barrier and helping to gain thermal resistance.
Using open-cell spray foam can help to reduce or remove the noise in your structure. The attic or ceiling is a great place to start, especially if your next to an airport.
Another benefit of giving your home a thermal envelope with great insulation is to provide it with a great sound barrier. Using the same type of tools can create comfort in other ways. Sound pollution in your home can damage your well being of your family. From the sound of people talking in the next room to outside noise, the level of noise in your home matters for your comfort level.
Choosing Thermal Envelope Solutions
Deciding on the right type of home insulation will take some research, but picking the right type will become invaluable by providing you with an efficient environment for working and living. If you live in Arizona in Phoenix, Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale, Glendale, Gilbert, Tempe or elsewhere in the valley Barrier Insulation, Inc. provides insulation installation to improve your thermal envelope. We install all types of home insulation and also offer service for commercial insulation installation. For more information or to schedule an appointment please call us today!
