The Dark Side of Insulation: Uncovering Hidden Heat Loss

As we walked through the first floor of the house, I couldn't help but notice the darker lines here represent the studs and in between it is whiter, so that's warmer because of the insulation. Right? The insulation has a higher r-value than the adjacent studs, so let's start the audit well, i've been through the whole first floor, I think we should go upstairs to find out what's going on okay. So around the corners there it gets a little dark and you think that's because that was fiberglass insulation pulled away could be you need good contact with the ceiling board to get that good thermal performance.

It's a lot of dark around the perimeter, what's going on here? The closer we get to the eve, the more substantial the heat loss is. Boy, that is really dark this is ice cold here, kevin almost as if it were totally uninsulated we've got ourselves a serious problem in the attic don't we? We've got to get up there and check that out another place we always want to check for drafts. Kevin and he lost his interior petitions, interior walls well let me show you some interior shots with a scanner here we are.

A heated petition between the bathroom and heated bedroom beyond so heated space on either side of this wall and what are we looking at? Well, you can see readily see cold air between the studs here represented in black. So the studs here are white and then the space in between which is darker is cold full of cold air somehow this interior petition is connected to the cold attic above sometimes these interior petitions can almost act as a as a chimney or a conduit warm air goes through the sheetrock into the uninsulated wall and is carried up right up into the attic.

So that's another draft how do we tackle that problem? We're going to have to go up in the attic to see the detail take off dust mask okay always a good thing to be uh using when we are working around insulation and some gloves as well exactly. So you've got some air leaks to show me right if you recall we were downstairs for one of the one of the big air leaks we saw was inside the bathroom petition that's right you actually said the air was moving through the wall right let's look down below here we're right over that petition.

Oh my, look here we are size of that oh right right you can actually feel the warmth rising up it's like a giant chimney running through the center of the house it's a heat loss conduit dumping warm air right into the attic and you're telling me that i can feel that right is there any wonder that heat built so high okay one of the first steps i want to do is just create a little bit of a backer just using some random unfaced fiberglass material this just works as a temporary stop.

So, this is not the air barrier, this is definitely not the air barrier because we know that fiberglass by itself will not stop air movement with our fiberglass backer now in place i can seal this with the foam let me show you how this works and it expands as it's applied right. It takes about 20 seconds to really cure so it's a fairly rapid and then so once this sets up, that's going to make an airtight barrier that'll stop this chimney or stack effect.

That's exactly right, kevin we can then at that point we're going to put our fiberglass back down the fiberglass will now do a good job because it's in an airtight configuration. So, bruce a lot of these holes that we found and have plugged are sort of in the center of this attic area or the ceiling below but when we looked at that thermal image a little earlier on all the dark black spots were around the edges here so i think that's where the heat loss is well we also had heat loss out near the eve area let me show you what's driving that particular problem.

One, the insulation batt doesn't always go all the way out to where it should so there's a gap and that's just zero r-values exactly number two, the particular type of vent shoot used does little to block cold air from actually getting underneath our fiberglass batt and cooling down the bedroom ceiling below. Let me show you a little better solution to that that allows for the ventilation this is a corrugated cardboard chute made just for that purpose fits right into the 16-inch on center framing.

And then, you just sort of staple it to the side fasten that but it also has this vertical component to it and what that does it blocks that and diverts that soft air on top of the fiberglass so the air is still allowed to come up through the soffit but instead of coming this way underneath the fiberglass or through the fiberglass, it's actually blocked and diverted up into the rafter bay where it is supposed to be right very simple solution.

And then we can push off fiberglass all the way out to where it should be.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: engot a fairly modern house a little less than 10 years old a fully insulated house good quality windows insulated doors uh homeowners got a little bit of an office space over the garage you notice we got the fully continuous soffit venting up above where do you start your audits the best best start right inside it's helpful for us to speak with a homeowner in advance and we spoke with the homeowner here about some of the issues in the house which were very cold house a lot of drafts extremely cold room over the garage and not surprisingly high heat bills picture you hear those couple things uh very often now very typical complaint it's a fully insulated house though so how do you kind of get to the root of the problem luckily we've got the diagnostic equipment such as this infrared thermal camera all right so we've got a monitor here can i plug it in and have a look so you would plug this in i'll show you exactly what how we can utilize this take a look at the house and see what we've got so if it's taking pictures of temperature what is hot what is cold well for example we'll start on this window you can see cold is represented by black so this big black patch right there right low temperature as opposed to course the warmth of my hand oh yeah nice bright and white all right fairly straightforward very easy to interpret you can see as i pan over the studying the wood studding so the vertical lines the darker lines here represent the studs and in between it it is whiter so that's warmer because of the insulation right the insulation has a higher r value than the adjacent studs so let's start the audit well i've been through the whole first floor i think we should go upstairs to find out what's going on okay so around the corners there it gets a little dark and you think that's because that was fiberglass insulation pulled away could be you need good contact with the ceiling board to get that good thermal performance it's a lot of dark around the perimeter what's going on here the closer we get to the eve the more substantial the heat loss is boy that is really dark this is ice cold here kevin almost as if it were totally uninsulated we've got ourselves a serious problem in the attic don't we we've got to get up there and check that out another place we always want to check for drafts kevin and he lost his interior petitions interior walls well let me show you some interior shots with a scanner here we are a heated petition between the bathroom and heated bedroom beyond so heated space on either side of this wall and what are we looking at well you can see readily see cold air between the studs here represented in black so the studs here are white and then the space in between which is darker is cold full of cold air somehow this interior petition is connected to the cold attic above sometimes these interior petitions can almost act as a as a chimney or a conduit warm air goes through the sheetrock into the uninsulated wall and is carried warm air rises right up into the attic so that's another draft how do we tackle that problem we're going to have to go up in the attic to see the detail take off dust mask okay always a good thing to be uh using when we are working around insulation and some gloves as well exactly so you've got some air leaks to show me right if you recall we were downstairs for one of the one of the big air leaks we saw was inside the bathroom petition that's right you actually said the air was moving through the wall right let's look down below here we're right over that petition oh my look here we are size of that oh right right you can actually feel the warmth rising up it's like a giant chimney running through the center of the house it's a heat loss conduit dumping warm air right into the attic and you're telling me that i can feel that right is there any wonder that heat built so high okay one of the first steps i want to do is just create a little bit of a backer just using some random unfaced fiberglass material this just works as a temporary stop so this is not the air barrier this is definitely not the air barrier because we know that fiberglass by itself will not stop air movement with our fiberglass backer now in place i can seal this with the foam let me show you how this works and it expands as it's applied right it takes about 20 seconds to really cure so it's a fairly rapid and then so once this sets up that's going to make an airtight barrier that'll stop this chimney or stack effect that's exactly right kevin we can then at that point we're going to put our fiberglass back down the fiberglass will now do a good job because it's in an airtight configuration so bruce a lot of these holes that we found and have plugged are sort of in the center of this attic area or the ceiling below but when we looked at that thermal image a little earlier on all the dark black spots were around the edges here so i think that's where the heat loss is well we also had heat loss out near the eve area let me show you what's driving that particular problem one the insulation bat doesn't always go all the way out to where it should so there's a gap and that's just zero r values exactly number two the particular type of vent shoot used does little to block cold air from actually getting underneath our fiberglass bat and cooling down the bedroom ceiling below let me show you a little better solution to that that allows for the ventilation this is a corrugated cardboard chute made just for that purpose fits right into the 16 inch on center framing and then you just sort of staple it to the side fasten that but it also has this vertical component to it and what that does it blocks that and diverts that soft air on top of the fiberglass so the air is still allowed to come up through the soffit but instead of coming this way underneath the fiberglass or through the fiberglass it's actually blocked and diverted up into the rafter bay where it is supposed to be right very simple solution and then you just put that in the rafter bays all the way around okay that's right then we can push off fiberglass all the way out to where it should begot a fairly modern house a little less than 10 years old a fully insulated house good quality windows insulated doors uh homeowners got a little bit of an office space over the garage you notice we got the fully continuous soffit venting up above where do you start your audits the best best start right inside it's helpful for us to speak with a homeowner in advance and we spoke with the homeowner here about some of the issues in the house which were very cold house a lot of drafts extremely cold room over the garage and not surprisingly high heat bills picture you hear those couple things uh very often now very typical complaint it's a fully insulated house though so how do you kind of get to the root of the problem luckily we've got the diagnostic equipment such as this infrared thermal camera all right so we've got a monitor here can i plug it in and have a look so you would plug this in i'll show you exactly what how we can utilize this take a look at the house and see what we've got so if it's taking pictures of temperature what is hot what is cold well for example we'll start on this window you can see cold is represented by black so this big black patch right there right low temperature as opposed to course the warmth of my hand oh yeah nice bright and white all right fairly straightforward very easy to interpret you can see as i pan over the studying the wood studding so the vertical lines the darker lines here represent the studs and in between it it is whiter so that's warmer because of the insulation right the insulation has a higher r value than the adjacent studs so let's start the audit well i've been through the whole first floor i think we should go upstairs to find out what's going on okay so around the corners there it gets a little dark and you think that's because that was fiberglass insulation pulled away could be you need good contact with the ceiling board to get that good thermal performance it's a lot of dark around the perimeter what's going on here the closer we get to the eve the more substantial the heat loss is boy that is really dark this is ice cold here kevin almost as if it were totally uninsulated we've got ourselves a serious problem in the attic don't we we've got to get up there and check that out another place we always want to check for drafts kevin and he lost his interior petitions interior walls well let me show you some interior shots with a scanner here we are a heated petition between the bathroom and heated bedroom beyond so heated space on either side of this wall and what are we looking at well you can see readily see cold air between the studs here represented in black so the studs here are white and then the space in between which is darker is cold full of cold air somehow this interior petition is connected to the cold attic above sometimes these interior petitions can almost act as a as a chimney or a conduit warm air goes through the sheetrock into the uninsulated wall and is carried warm air rises right up into the attic so that's another draft how do we tackle that problem we're going to have to go up in the attic to see the detail take off dust mask okay always a good thing to be uh using when we are working around insulation and some gloves as well exactly so you've got some air leaks to show me right if you recall we were downstairs for one of the one of the big air leaks we saw was inside the bathroom petition that's right you actually said the air was moving through the wall right let's look down below here we're right over that petition oh my look here we are size of that oh right right you can actually feel the warmth rising up it's like a giant chimney running through the center of the house it's a heat loss conduit dumping warm air right into the attic and you're telling me that i can feel that right is there any wonder that heat built so high okay one of the first steps i want to do is just create a little bit of a backer just using some random unfaced fiberglass material this just works as a temporary stop so this is not the air barrier this is definitely not the air barrier because we know that fiberglass by itself will not stop air movement with our fiberglass backer now in place i can seal this with the foam let me show you how this works and it expands as it's applied right it takes about 20 seconds to really cure so it's a fairly rapid and then so once this sets up that's going to make an airtight barrier that'll stop this chimney or stack effect that's exactly right kevin we can then at that point we're going to put our fiberglass back down the fiberglass will now do a good job because it's in an airtight configuration so bruce a lot of these holes that we found and have plugged are sort of in the center of this attic area or the ceiling below but when we looked at that thermal image a little earlier on all the dark black spots were around the edges here so i think that's where the heat loss is well we also had heat loss out near the eve area let me show you what's driving that particular problem one the insulation bat doesn't always go all the way out to where it should so there's a gap and that's just zero r values exactly number two the particular type of vent shoot used does little to block cold air from actually getting underneath our fiberglass bat and cooling down the bedroom ceiling below let me show you a little better solution to that that allows for the ventilation this is a corrugated cardboard chute made just for that purpose fits right into the 16 inch on center framing and then you just sort of staple it to the side fasten that but it also has this vertical component to it and what that does it blocks that and diverts that soft air on top of the fiberglass so the air is still allowed to come up through the soffit but instead of coming this way underneath the fiberglass or through the fiberglass it's actually blocked and diverted up into the rafter bay where it is supposed to be right very simple solution and then you just put that in the rafter bays all the way around okay that's right then we can push off fiberglass all the way out to where it should be\n"