NOTE: With winter upon us, In the Loop with DotLoop has designated the next month as Home Energy Month and will feature articles on how you can reduce your home's energy consumption through simple steps. DotLoop is dedicated to making every aspect of the home buying and owning experience as eco-friendly as possible.
My junior and senior years in college were spent in a tiny, tiny apartment right next to a KFC. The rent was cheap despite the finger-lickin' location and for the most part, it worked out fine for my roommate Jim and me.
The one caveat, however, was the fact that the walls of our building seemed to be insulated with tracing paper. While this wasn't always a bad thing (if we ran out of space in the freezer, we could always just keep a frozen pizza nice and cold by placing it on a window sill), it eventually took its toll on us.
Being the ever resourceful college kids that we were, Jim and I covered our windows in plastic garbage bags (evidently, this also provided us protection from the ter'rrists, too) and our tiny apartment didn't seem so drafty.
Insulation Proclamation
When people talk about making homes more energy-efficient, the most common example is insulation. According to the US Department of Energy, only about 20% of homes built before 1980 are well-insulated. The old stand-by of using plastic bags has always been a low-cost favorite, but for those of us who don't think that Hefty bags make a good design statement, there are even better resources available today. I'll run through a couple of examples here, including some more natural ideas out there (mushrooms?). A more complete list can be found here.
Blanket Insulation
Anyone familiar with the Pink Panther commercials knows about blanket insulation. The most common are made of fiberglass, but various other materials can be used, too, including wool. Outside of a trash bag alternative, blanket insulation is the easiest way to insulate your home and can be applied without any professional help. Blanket insulation has its pros and cons (getting fiberglass out of your lungs is tough, so wear a mask), but is probably the most ubiquitous type of insulation out there.
Spray-Foamed Insulation
For those a bit more ambitious with their insulation, spray-foam insulation not only gives you a good way of adding insulation to existing finished areas and irregularly shaped walls, but it can be fun to apply, too (just imagine reenacting scenes from Ghostbusters). Spray-foam insulation is made from materials such as polyurethane, phenolic, and other less-pronounceable materials (polyisocyanurate?) and has been a popular alternative to blanket insulation.
Green Insulation Alternatives
The irony of using the more popular insulation techniques mentioned above is that the actual manufacturing of the materials is not very eco-friendly. More natural insulation products have been around for centuries (for example, my own house, built in 1924, has horse-hair insulation) and like all good ideas, they haven't gone out of style. Wool has already been mentioned, but straw-bale and cotton insulation is also growing in popularity.
A Fungal Future For Insulation?
Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre have created a new process of growing insulation out of mushrooms and seed husks, a product they call Greensulate, with their company Ecovative Design. Already in use in some residential and commercial projects, the naturally-grown insulation can withstand a blowtorch and just may replace the Pink Panther as the product of choice.
Keep Yourself Insulated
Whether you use the latest in low-tech organic insulation or slap on your mask and spray your attic in fiberglass, insulating your home is one of the best ways to save energy. With the heating and cooling of homes accounting for 50 to 70% of home energy usage, and with the recent home energy tax credit, now is the best time to consider insulating your home.
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