Is your house in need of a winter sweater?

Your house gets cold too. Help it retain heat, reduce energy costs and increase your comfort.

If your home was built in the 1900’s, the chances are that its external walls are built by traditional stick frame construction. The walls and roof are likely constructed of studs (lumber) spaced apart in intervals with a gap or cavity between each stud. The cavities in the wall between the studs should be sealed with insulation to keep the heat from escaping through the cavities in the walls. However the studs themselves were most often not insulated, creating the perfect passageway for heat to escape from. This transfer of heat from the inside to the outside of your home through the stud is known as “thermal bridging”.  This is where uninsulated wood to wood connections form a bridge allowing heat to leak out of your home… reducing your home’s efficiency.  Continuous insulation (without gaps in insulation for studs) helps fully seal the exterior of your home to help keep as much heat as possible in.

When you update an older home’s exterior insulation to one that is continuous you are reducing your overall heat loss, and increasing the efficiency of your heating system – ultimately requiring your home to use less energy! Continuous wall insulation will also help to reduce CO2 emissions, fossil fuel use, as well as saving you money on your bills.  CO2 has been identified as a major contributing factor to climate change so it is important we all try to limit our the amounts we use as this directly impacts the environment.

One option for continuous insulation is Premier’s ci Panel (ci = continuous insulation).  Installed on the exterior of your home product (beneath the siding) the panel includes rigid polystyrene foam (not bat insulation with gaps) bonded to OSB and a protective radiant film barrier. When installed around the exterior of your home project, the ci Panel’s strong OSB can be simply installed right over existing stud walls, creates an insulated envelope and offers a solid surface for your siding to attach to.

Continuous insulation is a key way to remodel and update your home. In fact, ENERGY STAR and other energy and building code programs now recognize continuous insulation as  a valid material to reduce thermal bridging, and offer many options for tax credits and incentives to home owners who increase the insulation in their home retrofit projects. Incentives and rebates make the cost to improve your home minimal

Interested in saving money and putting a blanket on your home for the winter? Do it yourself, or contact a local siding or remodeling contractor and ask them about updating your home’s efficiency with continuous insulation panels today.

www.premiersips.com