Insulation, Radiant and Vapor Barriers - insulation
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shaggy1333
10-07-05, 05:17 AM
I have an old house i recently purchased. There was no insulation in the side of house so I had that blown in. There is insulation in the floor of the attic that was blown in at some point(paper I believe). The attic is the full size of the house( a two story about 1500 sq ft) and you can walk in it. I am not using the attic right now and I am wondering if I put a layer of insulation on the floor of the attic if that will help save additional heating costs? I live in Michigan and the heating cost is expected to be 50 to 70% higher. Also, the windows are old single pane with storms. They have a pretty good seal but I didn't know if there is any real difference in insulation value between wood blinds or the celluar single layer honeycomb blinds?
thank you
thank you
resercon
10-07-05, 08:52 AM
http://www.eere.energy.gov/EE/buildings_envelope.html
You will find links on this webpage that covers all the questions you have and a lot more.
While this webpage discusses specifics like "The Law of Diminishing Returns" concerning the cost effectiveness of adding insulation, differnent types of windows and treatments (the amount of information linked to this webpage is enormous, example it easily quadruples an Encyclopedia.) but what you will find it hard to find is a fairly easy concept concerning "The Whole House as a System of Energy Usage."
This concept covers not just everything in the house, but how they interact with each other. A basic single aspect of this concept which will interest you concerns volume and Thermal Mass. For example, an 8 ounce glass can only hold up to 8 ounces of water. If you drop a marble into a full glass of water, it displaces the amount of water in the glass causing the same volume of the marble in water to spill over the rim of the glass. If you drop enough marbles into the glass of water equal to 50% of the volume of water inside the glass, when you remove the marbles, there will only be 4 ounces of water inside the glass.
The glass represents the inside of the structure. Meaning to say, the volume of air inside the house remains constant. As you put objects inside your home, it displaces the volume of air inside your home. This object can be as small as a knick-knack or as large as a dining room set. Regardless of the size of the object, it will displace its volume in air inside the house.
Air is a HEAT TRANSFER MEDIUM inside the home. Meaning to say, an object of higher temperature will give heat to an object of lower temperature. This explicitly implies that this air HEAT TRANSFER MEDIUM applies to both heating and cooling, regardless of the type of heating/cooling systems you may have. The rule still apllies. In other words, if the air inside the house is warmer than the objects inside the house (Heating), the air will transfer heat to the objects inside the house. If the air is cooler than the objects inside the house (Cooling), the air will extract heat from the objects inside the house.
So the air within the house is essential in the distribution of conditioning the space within the house. Hence, the volume of air inside the house is a determining factor concerning the cost to condition the space inside your home. The reason for this is THERMAL MASS. What makes air such a good Heat Transfer Medium is its low mass. It can easily absorb and expel heat. On the other hand, wood has a much higher mass than air and wood will absorb and expel heat slowly.
If you were to apply this concept to two identical houses. One sparsly furnished and one fully furnished. The fully furnished house will have energy bills half of the sparsly furnished house and the comfort for the fully furnished house will be more than double than the sparsly furnished house. The reasons for this is the fully furnished house has less air for heat transfer, thereby causing the heat transfer to be accomplished more quickly. And the retention characteristic of thermal mass reduces the frequency of the heat transfer from occurring. Again this applies to both heating and cooling.
I need to STRESS this point. The above is a single aspect of this concept and an over-simplified one at that. Professionals like myself use information found on webpages, like the one mentioned above, and apply it. However, the site conditions determine the appropriate course of action.
Meaning to say, while this webpage discusses the advantages and disadvantages of a particular application, it does not mean that this particular application will produce the desired results. Based on the sparsly description you gave in your post, in my professional opinion, the aforementioned is more than likely your solution.
The lady of the house is going to love me because I more or less just told her to go SHOPPING.
You will find links on this webpage that covers all the questions you have and a lot more.
While this webpage discusses specifics like "The Law of Diminishing Returns" concerning the cost effectiveness of adding insulation, differnent types of windows and treatments (the amount of information linked to this webpage is enormous, example it easily quadruples an Encyclopedia.) but what you will find it hard to find is a fairly easy concept concerning "The Whole House as a System of Energy Usage."
This concept covers not just everything in the house, but how they interact with each other. A basic single aspect of this concept which will interest you concerns volume and Thermal Mass. For example, an 8 ounce glass can only hold up to 8 ounces of water. If you drop a marble into a full glass of water, it displaces the amount of water in the glass causing the same volume of the marble in water to spill over the rim of the glass. If you drop enough marbles into the glass of water equal to 50% of the volume of water inside the glass, when you remove the marbles, there will only be 4 ounces of water inside the glass.
The glass represents the inside of the structure. Meaning to say, the volume of air inside the house remains constant. As you put objects inside your home, it displaces the volume of air inside your home. This object can be as small as a knick-knack or as large as a dining room set. Regardless of the size of the object, it will displace its volume in air inside the house.
Air is a HEAT TRANSFER MEDIUM inside the home. Meaning to say, an object of higher temperature will give heat to an object of lower temperature. This explicitly implies that this air HEAT TRANSFER MEDIUM applies to both heating and cooling, regardless of the type of heating/cooling systems you may have. The rule still apllies. In other words, if the air inside the house is warmer than the objects inside the house (Heating), the air will transfer heat to the objects inside the house. If the air is cooler than the objects inside the house (Cooling), the air will extract heat from the objects inside the house.
So the air within the house is essential in the distribution of conditioning the space within the house. Hence, the volume of air inside the house is a determining factor concerning the cost to condition the space inside your home. The reason for this is THERMAL MASS. What makes air such a good Heat Transfer Medium is its low mass. It can easily absorb and expel heat. On the other hand, wood has a much higher mass than air and wood will absorb and expel heat slowly.
If you were to apply this concept to two identical houses. One sparsly furnished and one fully furnished. The fully furnished house will have energy bills half of the sparsly furnished house and the comfort for the fully furnished house will be more than double than the sparsly furnished house. The reasons for this is the fully furnished house has less air for heat transfer, thereby causing the heat transfer to be accomplished more quickly. And the retention characteristic of thermal mass reduces the frequency of the heat transfer from occurring. Again this applies to both heating and cooling.
I need to STRESS this point. The above is a single aspect of this concept and an over-simplified one at that. Professionals like myself use information found on webpages, like the one mentioned above, and apply it. However, the site conditions determine the appropriate course of action.
Meaning to say, while this webpage discusses the advantages and disadvantages of a particular application, it does not mean that this particular application will produce the desired results. Based on the sparsly description you gave in your post, in my professional opinion, the aforementioned is more than likely your solution.
The lady of the house is going to love me because I more or less just told her to go SHOPPING.