Hello Buddies! I promise this blog post will be brief and worth the read. Why? Because it can help educate you on the REAL science of heat transfer and help you look at your house's management of energy in a new way. With this new information, you may be able to manage the thermostat, insulation choices and comfort levels in your home much better while potentially preventing pipe freezing this season and overall help extend the life of all the systems in your home.
Got your attention? I hope so.
Many Homes are not just under Insulated but Improperly Insulated. They have Rolled (or Batts) Insulation when they should have Blown in and Blown in when maybe Foam might be a better choice.
Homeowners may be concerned with finding plumbing and wires also they install batt insulation thinking it will be easier to find wires and pipes only to expose their pipes to the prospect of freezing during winter. They use insulation sleeves but this only provides a nominal Resistance Value (or R-Value) to the transfer of heat.
This brings us to the purpose of this blog. Heat transfer. On a cold winter morning while on your Skiing Trip in Colorado, you wear gloves, hat, a warm insulated coat and possibly a mask not to keep the cold off of you but to retain your body's natural heat. This is called thermal retention. Thermal transfer occurs when you open your coat or take off your hat and your body heat leaves you. This causes the sensation of cold to take over and can result in serious conditions if left unmanaged.
This process is the same process that occurs in your home and in your pipes. The natural heat stored in your house will transfer to the cold outdoors if not properly insulated to the proper R-Value (Resistance Value). Pipes included. The temperature of the water in your pipes will begin to transfer out of the water into the pipe and then into the colder air. This process is know as Thermal transfer through conduction and finally through convection (air transfer).
To slow this transfer, we want to use a redundant system of properly sleeved pipes with insulation sleeves and then surround those pipes with a fiberglass blown in insulation that will add more resistance to thermal transfer. If you only have Batt insulation, typically that batt insulation will sit under your pipes and not encapsulate the pipe with the proper R-Value leaving them vulnerable to a faster rate of thermal transfer.
The process of thermal transfer is a continual process that occurs in all of nature but is best managed with an insulation product designed for your region, the proper application, and for the best result based on your home's design.
If you are still in need of information, you can always contact Attic Buddies Insulation for free advice. Remember to check your attic, crawlspace and wall insulation before the cold of winter arrives."An ounce of prevention beats a pound of"......Well you know the rest.
Have a Happy Holiday Season from Attic Buddies!
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