Insulation And Ventilation: Rx For An Attic That Running A Fever

Tulsa Blown In Insulation

Hot attics can be a major source of excess heat throughout your home. As sunshine beats down on the roof, temperatures in unfinished and unconditioned attics can reach 150 degrees or higher. This heat is easily absorbed and transferred by building materials such as wood. The heat radiates downward, increasing temperatures in all areas beneath the attic. In most homes, this translates to practically everywhere within the structure. By maintaining proper levels of both insulation and ventilation in your attic, you can limit the effects of excess heat that accumulates in this part of your house.Heat transferred from your attic to your living spaces can make your home uncomfortable and cause your air conditioning system to work harder than necessary, increasing wear on the unit and causing spikes in your utility bills. Adequate attic insulation and ventilation will prevent this problem by reducing the amount of heat that accumulates in your attic.

• Insulation: Install plenty of insulation in the attic to keep out heat. Fiberglass roll or blanket insulation is commonly used between beams and joists in the attic wall, floor and roof. Irregularly shaped or difficult-to-reach areas can be insulated using loose-fill pellet insulation. Use insulation with the highest R-value possible. R-values are a measure of how well insulation resists heat flow. The Energy Star program recommends using insulation with R-values of R30 to R60 in the Tulsa area.

• Ventilation: Attic fans will increase ventilation and airflow, which moves both heat and moisture from the attic to the outdoors. Attic fans should be able to replace the entire volume of air in the attic 10 times an hour. Increased airflow will be very effective at keeping your attic and your home cooler. Contact your local trusted HVAC provider for assistance with finding an attic fan that will create sufficient ventilation for your space.

For more than three decades, Air Assurance has been a leading source of HVAC sales, installation and maintenance in and around Tulsa. Contact us today for more information on attic insulation and ventilation and how improving these factors can make your home more comfortable and energy efficient.Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Areas of Your Home That Need the Most Ventilation

When it comes to home comfort and energy efficiency, ventilation – aka effective air exchange – plays a crucial role. Without adequate fresh air in a home, indoor air quality will suffer, with the environment becoming stale, stuffy and unhealthy.Learn what areas of your home will benefit from effective ventilating strategies, along with why whole-house mechanical air exchange may be necessary as well.

Nowadays, with energy efficiency increasingly stressed in building construction, working mechanical ventilation has become more important than ever. In the past, much of a home’s air-exchange needs were satisfied incidentally, with abundant air exchange through cracks and gaps in the home’s exterior envelope. That’s not the case any longer with the tight home construction of today.

The most common type of mechanical ventilation in a home is the bathroom exhaust fan. Most bathrooms are equipped with this fan, which not only de-fogs the room but also carries away unpleasant and noxious odors and contaminants.Next on the list is the kitchen, which almost always has a stovetop fan that carries away smells from cooking and food preparation, keeping them from spreading through the rest of the house.

One area where many homeowners neglect ventilation is the attic. Yet, effective air exchange is essential in the attic. Without it, during the summer, an attic can get superheated, and that heat eventually will transfer into the living spaces below. During the heating season, an attic without proper venting may help cause ice dams on the roof that can lead to extensive structural damage in a home.

In many homes, mechanical air exchange is necessary on a whole-house basis. Increasingly popular are balanced and supply-only systems, with the most common balanced system being Energy Recovery and Heat Recovery ventilating systems (ERV and HRV, respectively). Using parallel air streams, one blowing out and one blowing in, these systems ensure fresh air while also transferring heat and moisture (in ERVs) to help with home heating and cooling and humidity control.

We can help devise an effective ventilation strategy for your Broken Arrow area home. Please contact us at Air Assurance.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about ventilation and other HVAC topics, call us at 918-217-8273. Credit/Copyright Attribution: “clker-free-vector-images/Pixabay”

Is There a Humidity Problem in Your Home?

A little humidity can be a good thing, but having excess moisture in your Broken Arrow home can lead to a variety of issues. Not only does it make your home feel damp and clammy, but it can also trigger a host of allergy and asthma symptoms due to increased mold and mildew growth. If left unchecked, it could even lead to structural problems in your home.

Ways to Spot Moisture Problems

If you happen to spot the following, then it’s likely you’re looking at an excess moisture problem in your home:

• Excessive condensation on glass doors, windows and walls

• Peeling paint, visible moisture spots and/or cracks on walls

• Visible mold and mildew growth on walls and other surfaces

• Frequent allergy symptoms or respiratory issues

How to Deal with Excess Humidity

Now that you’ve discovered the problem, it’s time to deal with the underlying cause. These helpful tips can go a long way towards dealing with your home moisture problem once and for all:

• Increase your home’s ventilation – Make sure your home has enough flow-through ventilation to help carry away humid air. You may need to improve your home’s attic ventilation or even invest in a specialized ventilation system.

• Curtail moisture-creating activities – Bathing and cooking can easily raise humidity levels, so steps should be taken to reduce that source of moisture. Start by cutting back your showering or bathing time. Keep your pots and pans covered while you cook and always use your range and bathroom exhaust fans while cooking and bathing.

• Invest in a dehumidifier – Unlike air conditioners, dehumidifiers are dedicated full-time towards removing excess moisture from indoor air. Portable and whole-house dehumidifiers are available for dealing with localized and house-wide moisture problems.

Contact the experts at Air Assurance and learn more ways you can spot humidity before it becomes a serious problem in your Broken Arrow home.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Credit/Copyright Attribution: “Mario7/Shutterstock”

Simple Ways to Improve Attic Ventilation in Your Broken Arrow Home

Proper attic ventilation is key to maintaining good indoor air quality, protecting your roof and regulating interior moisture. It’s also lacking in a lot of homes, and you may not even know it until ice dams form in the winter or you find a nasty surprise in the form of massive mold growth. Here are a few things a ventilation professional can do to improve attic ventilation.

Assess Existing Soffit and Roof Vents

Most attic ventilation relies on a good pairing between soffit vents–that is, those positioned on the underside of the eaves or gables–and the roof vents along your home’s roofline. Air flows in through the soffit vents and back out the roof vents. If either of these are insufficient for your home’s needs, you’ll have inadequate ventilation. Contact a qualified contractor to determine if adding new vents is the right move for your home.

Install High-Efficiency Ventilation Systems

New technology brings a wide range of new solutions for your home, including ways to improve home efficiency. High-efficiency ventilation systems are more expensive to install than traditional vents, but work with sensors that determine the amount of ventilation and when. Many are paired with solar-powered fans that move air through faster without consuming grid electricity. While energy efficient systems have historically been used for commercial and multi-unit applications, they are becoming more and more popular in single-unit residential applications. Discuss your interests and expectations with your ventilation contractor to determine if an energy efficient system would work well in your home.

What You Can Do for Ventilation

As a homeowner, your responsibility to attic ventilation is, essentially, to leave it alone. That is, don’t use your attic for storage or in any way obstruct the existing ventilation system. Check the vents regularly to ensure that they’re free of debris, and have your attic insulation assessed to ensure that you have enough for optimum efficiency in your Broken Arrow home.For more information on how to improve attic ventilation, contact Air Assurance, your premier source for indoor air quality since 1985.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Credit/Copyright Attribution: “somchai-rakin/Shutterstock”