The Mass Save® Program That Can Help Homeowners Upgrade Their Insulation to Improve Energy Efficiency

When it comes to effectively heating and cooling your home and becoming more energy efficient in the process, your insulation is a major factor to consider. Incorporate enough insulation, and typically you’ll be halfway home when it comes to attaining a high energy efficiency rating, especially if your home is based on newer construction. 

If you don’t have enough insulation or its not doing its job properly, your home may literally be leaking money. Losing heat in the winter or air conditioned air in the summer is a serious problem, but fortunately solving that problem isn’t necessarily a hard fix. 

How Much Insulation Do You Need to Be Energy Efficient?

It might seem slightly frustrating to answer this question with “it varies,” but that answer really is true. This is because there are typically several factors that come into play: 

• The age, design, square footage and configuration of your home 
• Local building codes
• Your lifestyle, daily routines and budget

The old school measurement of “enough” insulation was a few inches. Specifically, you used to need at least 10-14 inches of insulation to be energy efficient, but nowadays that’s an outdated measurement. 

Why? Insulation technology has advanced considerably since energy efficiency was measured in inches. There’s also a better insulation rating system out there now.

It’s called the R-value. It might sound complicated, but it’s really just the resistance to heat flow, and it’s a better and more accurate way to measure the energy efficiency of your home when it comes to insulation. 

In colder climates like New England, the recommended value is from R49 to R60. But you can go way beyond that when it comes to using insulation to improve the energy efficiency of your home. 

How to Insulate Your Existing Home

If you’re one of those homeowners who keeps up with insulation advancements to some extent—and you really should be—then it might seem like you’re playing catch up, especially if your home is older. 

But that’s not necessarily true, especially if you know about savings programs like Mass Save®, which can get you discounts of up to 75 percent to upgrade the insulation in your home. 

The best way to do this is to get a home energy assessment, which is also known as a home energy audit, from a company like Revise, Inc. When you do your home energy assessment, we’ll send out a trained expert to show you how you can upgrade your insulation game to increase your home’s energy efficiency rating. 

That expert will do a thorough analysis of your home. That analysis will include a blower door test, which will show you exactly where your home is leaking air and your insulation may not be measuring up. 

The expert will also use an infrared camera to analyze the insulation in your walls, which will give you an even better idea of what you need to do to improve your insulation number. 

Once this happens, it won’t matter when your home was built. The recommendations may include adding upgraded insulation at a considerable discount, and you may be able to add to the effectiveness of that insulation by adding energy efficient windows and doors that are also available at a discount. 

Making Your Home More Energy Efficient: Spray Foam, Fiberglass and Loose Fill Insulation

There are several different kinds of home insulation, and one of the most common questions our experts at Revise are asked is which one is more efficient. 

The answer depends on your home, your needs and your budget, of course, but it is important to know the strengths and weaknesses of the different types. 

• Spray foam: The biggest strength of spray foam insulation is its ability to create a tight seal. It expands once its sprayed, then hardens and forms a protective barrier, and the finished product gives you a high R rating wherever you have it installed. 
• Fiberglass: This kind of insulation is very common, and it comes in bundles called batts, traditional rolls or loose fill forms. It can be used anywhere, and it’ll give you a high R rating. Plus it’s affordable, so it checks a lot of the right boxes. 
• Rigid foam: The big selling point of this kind of foam is that it gives you excellent thermal resistance. It has a high R-value for the amount of thickness you select, and it can help you avoid gaps in your insulation. 

How to Insulate and Seal Air Gaps in Your Interior and Exterior Walls

Many people don’t think of walls when they consider insulation, but they’re almost as important as your attic, even if they’re interior. There are differences in how you want insulate interior and exterior walls, so let’s take a brief look at those. 

• Interior walls: You can use a combination of fiberglass and blown-in installation to get good coverage. Fiberglass in batts or rolls will give you the coverage you need between your wall studs, and fiberglass installation is often precut to meet standard spacing. Blown-in insulation is often used as a complement based on the fact that it does a better job of filling gaps.
• Exterior walls: Rigid foam insulation can be added prior to upgrades like siding on one side of the exterior walls, and you can use spray foam insulation on the inner half of the exterior wall. Dividing the wall into halves will help you get better overall coverage. 

Insulating a Room Without Using Insulation

This one might sound like some kind of puzzle, but you can use weather stripping around doors and windows, window treatments and caulking to insulate a room without having to penetrate the walls. 

You can also use film or panels on the windows together along with thick rugs to complete the package. You can also choose curtains or blinds that will help make your room warmer and cozier. 

Upgrade Your Insulation IQ and Become More Home Energy Efficient with Revise, Inc.

At Revise, Inc., we’re committed to doing everything we can to help make your home more energy efficient and educating you about your home and what you can do to maximize savings under Mass Save®. 

We’re proud to be a designated contractor under the Mass Save® program, and we’ve helped hundreds of customers save thousands of dollars while improving their energy efficiency. 

We make the process as simple as possible. Our home energy assessors are professionals who are extensively trained to evaluate your energy needs, and we’re happy to answer any questions you may have or explain anything from the assessment. We want you to understand that it’s a lot easier to increase your savings than you think, and we can show you how to do it. 

To start the process, call us at 800-885-7283 (SAVE) or visit our website, www.callrevise.com. We’ve got some great information about savings there, so it’s an excellent place to start if you’re curious and you want to get some background material about how to spend less while making your home more energy efficient.