Here’s How to Check Insulation Levels in Your House

An important factor in keeping your home comfortable during the winter is your insulation level. If you don’t have enough insulation in your attic or walls, you end up heating the outdoors as well as the indoors.

The good news is, there are simple tests to make sure your home has adequate insulation.

Checking Your Attic’s Insulation Level

The first thing you’ll need to do is visit your attic. If necessary, grab a ladder, flashlight, and a few boards or other firm surfaces to lay across your attic joists. This allows you to walk through your attic without accidentally stepping through your ceiling.

When you get up to your attic, you’ll want to check the insulation level in several places. Just because you have enough insulation in the middle doesn’t mean you have enough in the eaves. Depending on whether you have additions to your home, you may also find that sections have been insulated at different times, leading to different amounts of insulation in different places.

Here’s what you’re looking for:

• Is the insulation at or below the top of your joists in some or all parts of your attic? If so, you probably need more insulation.
• Is the insulation covering the top of the joists throughout the whole attic? If so, you probably have enough insulation.

While you’re up in your attic, also check for signs of air leaks that can be letting warm air escape. Dirty, damp, or unusually packed down insulation can indicate that air is flowing through. This is typically a sign of an air leak.

Checking Your Wall Insulation

You can check to see if you have insulation in your exterior walls with another simple test. Just follow these steps:

1. Find an outlet along the wall you’re checking.
2. Remove the cover.
3. Look around the edges of the outlet box for insulation.

If you don’t have adequate insulation or don’t know what type to add, contact your HVAC professional for advice.

Ready to learn more about insulation levels or any other HVAC questions in the Middletown area? Contact C. R. Wolfe Heating & Air Conditioning today.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Middletown, New York about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about insulation levels and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 845-367-4482.

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