Do I have enough Insulation?
A inspection of the house can show whether or not your insulation level is too low or should be upgraded. Typical Insulation levels of homes built in the 80’s and 90’s runs round R19 or 7.5″ inches of insulation. Typical levels of homes built circa 2009 runs around R30 or (11.5″) of insulation. Some city codes require the house to be upgraded when a re-roof permit is pulled and one of the requirements at times is upgrading the insulation level to R30 or R38 (14.5″).
How do you know if you have enough insulation?
If you have a measuring tape and you know how to properly and safely walk in your attic then go into the attic and measure how deep your insulation level is. If you have insulation levels of around 11.5″ to 20″ then you typically have adequate insulation especially if your on the upper end toward 20″ of insulation.
How do I know it’s enough?
On a cold day where there is frost on the roof; just before the sun shines on the roofs and after you know your house is at a good temperature with the heater running go outside and look up at your roof. If the frost is still on your roof; that means the heater is not heating your attic space (hot air is not escaping your house into your attic) and melting the frost on the roof.
Here is what a poorly insulated house looks like in this situation:
As you can see the frost is melted off the roof because the heat is escaping the house due to a lack of insulation. Adding insulation in this house will GREATLY increase the energy savings and the life of the heater due to the fact that once insulation is added; the heater will not need to turn on so much to try and heat the universe.