Choosing the Best Type of Insulation for Your Home

I realize I haven’t blogged a lot about our new build! And don’t you worry, you can look forward to so many “fun” topics to come as the building process progresses! But, much like building the house, before we can get to the fun things we need to discuss the kind of boring, but super important things, like insulation. Choosing the best type of insulation for your home might not be the most exciting part of building a new home, but I feel like it’s so important. And it’s an area where you want to make the right choice.

So, where do you even start when it comes to choosing insulation? The three most important factors when deciding what type of insulation to use for your home are:

Where are you using it?
What’s your budget?
What is the desired R-value? (The R-value is determined by where you live and the part of your house you are insulating. This number will vary depending on those factors.)

Choosing the Best Type of Insulation for Your Home

As for types of insulation, most commonly you will hear about rolls, batts, spray foam, radiant barriers, loose-fill, rigid foam, and recycled insulation materials. After much deliberation we have settled on a combination of spray foam and blown in insulation. We chose closed cell foam so that no condensation happens in unvented roof areas. To start, we are doing a 2″ layer of spray foam throughout the whole house. This will help us avoid any air gaps or moisture penetration, since we get a lot of that here in Utah! Next, the walls will have to be netted. Then another 3″ of blown in insulation will be added on top of that. In total the walls will have a 29 R-value!! Wowzers, I like the sound of that.

This combination of insulation types is especially important for us because it makes the house much more energy efficient. Meaning, we will be using less energy to heat or cool the home. I will say, it is more money initially. But it will save us money every month because the AC and furnace will run less often. Here In Utah we have quite the swing of temperatures with some extremely cold winters and pretty hot summers – so this was a huge selling point for me.

Choosing Your Insulation Contractor

We got several bids to do our insulation and ultimately chose to go with Hansen/AllSeasons Insulation. Dave, the owner, has 30 years of experience in the insulation business. And he is so knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the different codes here in the valley. We all know how important it is that everything is up to code. Especially because if it isn’t, it can really delay the building timeline. Dave’s time in the industry was a huge selling point for us because that not only means that he is knowledgeable about all the different options, but also about what has and has not worked well for extended periods of time in different climates. They have been so great to work with and I am so happy with my choice!

If you’re looking into choosing the best type of insulation for your home here in Utah, definitely check out Dave and his team. Use his website to get a free quote, or contact Sean Brown at 385-241-6542 with any questions.

And check back here on the blog for more new build updates as we get the ball rolling on more of the fun, design-oriented things!