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Calculate the Cost of Insulating Your Home

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If your home is barely above freezing in the winter or feels particularly hot in the summer, you might be living in a poorly-insulated house. Though insulation comes with a cost, it's more than the issue of a few dollars and cents at stake here.

Insulating your home can bring invaluable benefits in the comfort it brings, better health, and the ability to enjoy living in your own home. A home insulation calculator can only show you the financial benefits, and there are some. For example, you might not be aware that a better-insulated house typically consumes less in heating and cooling costs in times of extreme temperatures.

However, you should also take into account the forgotten benefits of home insulation that have little to do with money. With those in mind, insulating your home could be the best thing you've ever done for the year-round comfort of your family.

Cost of Inside Wall Insulation

You will want to consider insulation for the inside walls of your house in order to make the house warmer in the winter time. Insulating inside walls dampens the movement of cold draughts, minimizing the ability of cold to travel around your house. If cold air seeps in, for instance, when someone opens the door, insulation will stop it from spreading to the other rooms. An additional benefit of inside wall insulation is that it can cut down your heating bills.

There are multiple insulation options for insulating inside walls. These include rigid foam boards, quilts of mineral wools, as well as sheep's wool and other natural materials. These types of inside wall insulation will cost between $1.70 per square foot to $3.13 per square foot in material costs.

In addition to the cost of the materials, you also need to consider how putting in insulation will affect the current fixtures in your house. You might need to carry out some internal renovations, specifically, moving radiators and other wall installations.

Options and Costs for External Insulation

Your choice of external insulation requires substantial thought and attention to detail because it can change the physical appearance of your house. The actual insulation can be made of mineral wools, EPS (expanded polystyrene), or phenolic resin.

The cost for mineral wools averages $1 per square foot to $2 per square foot. Depending on labor costs, the total might be higher. EPS costs around $3 per square foot, while phenolic resin will cost in the region of $1 per square foot.

There are many renders available that can help you achieve the final look of your choice. For instance, builders can apply a brick render to your insulation, along with other options such as smooth paint, glass, or ceramics. The render you choose will have an impact on the total insulation cost.

Costs for Attic Insulation

The attic is particularly vulnerable to deathly chills in the winter time. Perched high atop your house, it's a natural weak point where cold can seep in.

To prevent this, you will need to insulate the attic adequately. Doing so can make a big difference to your heating bill. In the summertime, a well-insulated attic will help keep heat from entering your house, keeping the house cooler overall.

Your options for attic insulation include blown in insulation, costing about $1 per square foot, and blanket batt insulation. The latter will run $0.60 a square foot, making it an especially cost-effective insulation solution.

Picking the Best Insulation Company

Finding the best insulation company locally comes down to a few essential considerations:

Selection - Check if the company offers a wide selection of insulation materials: cellulose, batt, foam insulation, and others.
Customer support - A good insulation contractor will install the insulation and offer a period of support to fix any problems that may arise.
Quality rating - If the company has been in business for a while, it should have positive customer reviews on platforms like Yelp and Google, indicating quality delivery on past customer orders.

While you should compare the prices charged by different companies, consider that there is a lot more to successful insulation than costs. Sometimes, a better company will charge more, but make up for it in customer support and a stress-free experience. The result will be a more comfortable home and a solution that lasts.