September 22, 2024 • 28 mins
Dean discusses how homes in different climates share similar construction because insulation is universally important for both heat and cooling. He explains the differences between blown-in and rolled fiberglass attic insulation, noting that attics function best when left empty to insulate effectively.
For older homes without wall insulation, Dean outlines options like hiring professionals to blow insulation into existing walls or removing drywall yourself for better access and savings.
He also highlights innovative insulation materials and the value of air-sealing, wrapping up with his clothing analogy to redefine how we think about insulating our homes.
For older homes without wall insulation, Dean outlines options like hiring professionals to blow insulation into existing walls or removing drywall yourself for better access and savings.
He also highlights innovative insulation materials and the value of air-sealing, wrapping up with his clothing analogy to redefine how we think about insulating our homes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp, the
House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to home where.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Every week we help you better understand that place where
you live. I am Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer, here
with you live like I am every weekend Saturday mornings
from six to eight Pacific time, Sunday mornings nine to
noon Pacific time. Welcome to the program. Welcome to the
third hour of our fine little program. We are talking
(00:32):
insulation today. Not a very exciting sexy concept. I'm trying
my best to keep it as interesting as possible, but
an immensely useful and practical and valuable thing when it
comes to our homes, especially well no matter where you live,
all right, insulation is simply the reality now.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I get asked all the time, Dean these days.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
You know, with the things advancing the way they are
in every area, especially in home design and home construction
and so on, do you find it hard to keep
up with the regions and how different things are from
one region to the next. Like you know, you are
(01:17):
based out of southern California here, and you are speaking
in our live local show here on KFI to southern Cali,
greater southern California, but also via the stream, we're talking
to people all over the country, and there are folks
all over the country who are listening. So how different
it is to talk to people in Florida than SoCal
(01:39):
and Portland and in Maine and in the Midwest. And
how do you keep up with all of that? Well,
here's the nice thing. By and large, that's not where
things are going. Diversity is not where things are going
in terms of basic home construction. In fact, if anything, now,
(02:00):
there's always a bunch of different ways to you know,
to skin a cat, as it were, sorry Peter, to
build a home as it were. But what's happening is
that since we are all learning the value of certain
aspects of home construction, things are not diversifying the way
(02:21):
you would think. In fact, the shell, especially when it
comes to basic construction, in the shell of a home,
they're actually all becoming more and more similar. And so
the reality is if you are living in you know,
northern New England or in North Dakota, where the winters
are just punishing, and versus living in New Mexico where
(02:47):
the summers are just punishing, The fact of the matter
is we are building those two homes in many regards
today the same because insulation is not just like we've
been saying, about keeping your house warm, it's also about
keeping it cool. And so this is really a universal
message to everybody. Insulation helps every home, no matter where
(03:11):
you find it. Okay, So that being said, where are
we at in the conversation. That's a really good question.
I have to find my place here and figure out
where we are.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
We were talking about before the break that the best
attic insulation is not rolled insulation but blown in. Now
blown in has a couple of objections other than it's
messy and you know, hey, I wanted to store my
Christmas stuff up there. I'm sorry about that, but find
(03:44):
another place to store your decorations and long term storage
other than the attic. Let the attic do its job
and to be a fantastically insulated space. But the objections,
the practical objections to blown in insulation up there is
number one. I've got attic eves vents, and if I
(04:06):
blow in insulation all the way over to the edge
of the roofline, then then that's going to get in
the way of my attic eves and my my attic.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Is not going to breathe.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, well placed objection, but not actually relevant if we
insulate the right way, if you are switching from bat
insulation to blown in, or if you're just redoing ancient
blown in insulation, you do need to protect those attic events.
(04:36):
But there are these little they're polystyrene baffles, their baffles,
and they they slide into the rafter bay, right up
against the edge of the roofline, and they basically allowed
They're like a snorkel. Think of it like that. They
allow this little tiny air gap from the event to
(04:59):
go up the roofline and breathe out and do its job,
but protect it. And that way you can blow insulation
right in up against the edge there. If you don't,
if that's not a good enough word picture for you,
then then just look at attic eve vent baffle online
and you'll see what I'm talking about. But basically it
(05:21):
allows you to blow in insulation right up against your
attic eve's and not block them because they still breathe
into the attic and they're super inexpensive. I think they're
like two dollars for a little vent baffle for each
rafter bang, and that's not that much when you work
it all the way around the roof, right, that's objection
number one. Objection number two is if I don't use
(05:44):
rolled insulation in my attic, then I have to hire somebody.
And I was going to diy this project myself to
save costs. That's also false these days, way false. These days.
Blown in insulation machines are one of the biggest home
owner rental units on the market these days. They're at
(06:05):
every rental yard, They're at all the big boxes, like
the Home Depot rental area. I just saw a guy
renting one the other day. They sit outside so they
don't have to bring in the noise. They usually have
like one hundred foot long hose that you draw inside
the house, run up into the attic, and that's what
(06:25):
you control. They start and stop with a radio controller,
so you literally have control of starting and stopping the flow.
You don't have to have a crew of people there
helping you. And they cost about two hundred dollars a day.
I think I just saw that on the home Depot
website that a cellulose blown in insulation rental machine is
(06:47):
like one ninety nine for the day and first day
often free if you buy a large enough amount of
insulation for the projects. So they're not and I would
argue they're easier to you. It's easier to insulate an
attic with blown in with a hose than it is
crawling all the way across an attic into every little
(07:10):
nook and cranny trying to cut in a rolled bat insulation.
So there you go. That's my argument right there. You
can totally totally do it if you were in that
DIY mood. But either way, it's an inexpensive process relative
to some of the things that you could spend some
serious money on with the house. All right, now, we
(07:31):
got to talk about the elephant in the room, those
empty exterior walls. If you live in an older home
and you don't have insulation in your outside walls, what
do you do? We'll talk about it right after.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Appreciate all of you who listen, who take time out
of your Sunday mornings, especially on a gorgeous daylight the day,
to spend some time thinking and talking about your home.
We're not doing any sexy design stuff today. We're talking insulation.
It's super uber practical, trying to make it as interesting
as possible and as relevant as possible for you. And
(08:16):
I don't know, I think I'm doing okay, I'm doing
okay with it. All right, let's continue because we've still
got a lot to cover here before we are done.
Another misnomer about, or misconception about insulation in the home
is that, you know what, I can't insulate my exterior
(08:37):
walls without tearing off all my stucco or the dry wall.
And that is technically Now the spirit of this, I
think is probably not a misconception, but technically that is false.
You can hire an insulating company to come in and
blow cellulose fiber in or mineral wool fiber, depending on
(09:02):
their recommendation, into a pre existing, already sealed up exterior wall.
Now it's going to make a little bit of disruption
because every single stud bay has to have access to
(09:22):
the hose that blows in the insulation. Okay, that means
every sixteen inches or so, we're making like a two
inch hole in the wall. Now, sometimes that two inch
hole can be made in the stucco outside, since it
was for a while very very common. More often than not,
(09:44):
I see homeowners electing to do the two inch holes
on the inside of the house through the dry wall.
But it all depends, Okay. Yes, it is disruptive, Yes
it is tedious, and yes, sometimes depending on whether your
home has fire blocks in the walls. Fire blocks meaning
(10:08):
the mid span of the height of the wall, there's
a block, a horizontal block running across that blocks the bay.
You may need a hole up above and a hole
down below. Every sixteen inch. That's a lot of holes,
a lot of holes in my house. Is it worth it? Well,
in the end, of course, of course it's worth it
(10:30):
because holes can be patched. And then guess what. Now
you've got fully insulated exterior walls, and the insulation companies
know how to blow it in. They know how to
minimize the settlement of that blown in cellulo sand or
mineral wool fiber inside the walls. And you know all
(10:51):
as well. However, you know, I'm not pulling any punches
with you. It can be a thing. It's a thing.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Now. Setting that aside.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
I have seen homeowners, and rightly so, simply elect to
save money. DIY this themselves. And here's how they do it.
I know this sounds drastic, but they've removed the drywall
from the exterior walls of the rooms of their homes. Okay,
(11:24):
that's not most of your drywall. In fact, that's a
minimal amount of your overall drywall. And basically, by removing
the drywall, let's say you're in a bedroom, Let's say
you got a twelve foot long wall and then eight
foot high. You know, that's about, you know, about four
sheets of drywall overall. At the most, drywall is not
(11:45):
very expensive. And by removing the old drywall, it totally
exposes the inside of the exterior wall, all the studs
are there. And then you can use that lovely back
insulation that you've been wanting to use and roll that in,
put that into the walls, and reapply the drywall and repaint. Now,
(12:07):
at the end of the day, if you're doing that yourself,
you're going to save a ton of money over having
an insulation service. You know, make holes in all of
your walls, and you're getting the best possible no settlement
insulation in those exterior walls. Essentially restoring or making that
exterior wall insulated the way we would if we did
(12:31):
it brand new, new build and it just doesn't get
better than that. And that's something to think about. But
I'm not sitting here trying to gloss over the fact
that it isn't disruptive to do. I'm simply telling you,
if you're committed to energy savings on your home and
you do live in a energy extreme environment, Okay, if
(12:53):
you live in a place in the Southwest in which
there are not just a few days above one hundred,
but we above one hundred. If you live somewhere in
the Midwest and where there's not just a few freezing
cold days, but a lot of, you know, twenty degree
days during the winter, then you should seriously consider, seriously
(13:17):
consider insulating those exterior walls. There's just no way around
it being a good idea. Okay, I know it's disruptive,
but there you go. Okay, Now, when we return to
the conversation right after the break, I want to talk
about the materials that are available to you, because there
is a wide range of materials, and we also want
(13:39):
to talk about air sealing the house. That's something that's
the leaky coat zipping up your jacket that we haven't
fully discussed that, and there are ways to do it that.
If you're building new or a major remodel, there are
ways to do it without you having to go to
any great lengths of effort. You can just hire a
(13:59):
company need to come in and air seal the house.
It's very high tech and it's very cool. We'll talk
about it.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Your Home with Dean Sharp, the house whisper.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
We are talking insulation today, and I want to get
back to that conversation with you right now.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Where'd I leave off? What was I?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh? Time to talk materials. Time to talk about materials
and air sealing your home and a cool way of
doing it if you're doing a major remodel or a
new build as well. Not so much recommended for folks
who already have all the furniture and everything finished inside
the house.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
And I'll explain why.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
But anyway, materials available today, they come down to essentially
four different or five different kinds of materials available for
insulating your home. Number one the classic old fiberglass insulation.
Fiberglass still hold in its own in the insulation market,
(15:07):
mainly because it is among the least expensive, may perhaps
the least expensive in generally speaking insulation. Yes it's made
out of tiny, little microscopic shards of glass, and yes
it's itchy on your skin, and yes it can get
messy and weird. And you should, always, by the way,
(15:28):
whenever you're installing fiberglass or rock wool mineral insulation, be
wearing a protective mask, and your insulation company should be
doing the same, and also ceiling off areas of the
home from the area that they're working in so that
none of that dust and our particulate matter can get
near you, because it's not good to breathe in at all.
(15:52):
Most of us don't react well to breathing in glass
into our lungs or the tiny little dust particles of
mineral wool fibers. So fiberglass insulation still doing well. You
need more fiberglass than some of the other forms of
insulation in terms of size or loft in order to
(16:13):
get the same R value, but you can get it.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
It comes in bats, as you know, and also it
can be blown in as well. Fiberglass does a good
job of maintaining its loft because it's very cotton candy ish,
and it holds together in that structure. And by the way,
I should take this moment to make something really clear,
there's nothing magical about insulating fibers in general, the fiber itself.
(16:43):
What's important is the kind of fiber and the loft
of the fiber. Okay, now, going back to the clothes
analogy that I was using earlier in the show, I
want you to think of a down jacket.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
A down jacket is big and puffy, full of down
feathers inside. Its insulating value is dependent upon how puffy
it is. Okay, the amount of feathers, but also how
puffy it is. If you, and take this from an
experienced backpacker, if you've got a down sleeping bag or
(17:18):
a down jacket, I mean, they're incredibly warm, and they
will keep you warm and toasty even in the most
severe environments, right up until the moment when they get wet.
When they get wet, they get flat. And as soon
as they go flat, it does not matter that there
are a bunch of feathers in there. They're all laying
flat and they're no longer holding air space trapped. So
(17:42):
a down jacket loses almost all of its insulating value
when it gets rolled flat or when it gets wet,
which is, you know, kind of the equivalent the same
with insulations. So can you buy our thirty insulation, a
big old like twelve inch thick bat of insulation and
(18:04):
shove it into a two by four wall? Yes, you can.
Will it be R thirty once you've compressed it down
to three and a half inches, No, it won't be anymore.
It will just be maybe just slightly higher than if
you just bought the R eleven or R thirteen insulation
for the two by four walls. So smushing insulation down
(18:28):
makes it lose it's our value. It has to stay
at the puff puffiness level that it was designed to
stay at. So fiberglass insulation least expensive fiber out there
on the market rock wool, mineral wool insulation. I love
this stuff myself. I love it in walls, especially in
(18:48):
bat form, because not only do you get a little
bit more our value for the same space, because it's
more dense than fiberglass. I also love the fact that
you stuff wear a mask because of the dust. But
it's dust. It creates its own little dust, which is
a danger to breathe just like fiberglass, but it doesn't
(19:09):
have sharp fibers, so it's not gonna make your skin itch.
That's another thing I love about it. The third thing
I love about it is that not only do you
get a little bit more our value per the dimensionality
of the insulation, but it's also way better sound insulation
because it's more dense, So a lot of benefits I
think to mineral wool or rock wool insulation. In the
(19:33):
blown in department, you can blow in fiberglass or rock wool,
but cellulose insulation is my preferred fiber for blown in.
Cellulase has no sharp fibers, no dust associated with it.
It also gets treated with borates, which makes it a
moisture resistant, mildew resistant, rodent resistant, and fire resistant, which
(19:57):
is just a fantastic domination of things to put up
into your attic. So I do love blown in Cellulose
s insulation also a little bit more dense than fiberglass.
Blown in also holds its loft well, and I just
think there are a lot of great advantages to cellulose.
But at the end of the day, it's a tool bag,
(20:18):
all right. You pick the stuff that works best for you.
And finally, finally for those of you who are really
in an environment worthy of this, and this is more
new construction in terms of that, and that is spray
foam insulation in the walls. This is the highest amount
(20:39):
of our value for the least amount of inches spray
foam insulation. It also air seals the walls that it
goes in. Spray Foam insulation is absolutely fantastic, but it's
also the most expensive of all of the options. So
just know, now you've got a toolbag, do your own research,
(21:00):
figure out where's works best for you. All right, air
sealing the house, you know what. All to leave that
to the other side of the break. So let's go
to the break and then we'll come back. The last
thing we're going to discuss today is air ceiling of
major remodels and new construction, or maybe even the attic
and duct leakage. There is a very very high tech
(21:22):
process that can be used to seal HVAC ducks, addicts,
and new construction of an entire home. It's cool and
I want to tell you about it before we're done.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Are you feeling it? Are you feeling autumn out there?
M m m mmm m it's feeling good. I'm just
telling you make plans, make plans to get out in
this weather, be a part of the world around you.
Enjoy it, embrace it. All right, we've been talking insulation today.
(22:02):
Here we are at the end of another three hours
of information packed show. I mean I crammed as much
in here as I possibly could for you so that
you've got a full view of insulation. One more thing
I want to talk to you about. This is only
gonna apply in certain situations. If you're building a new home,
absolutely you should listen to this. If you're doing a
(22:23):
major remodel, also, if you think you have leaky HVAC
duct work, also listen to this. And if you've got
attic space that you think is leaking from the rest
of the house, this would apply to you too, And
that is air cealing the house. Now, when I mentioned
(22:44):
earlier the idea of using calking, I didn't actually sorry
getting ahead of myself here, when I talked about air
leakage air infiltration into a home. One of the ways
to stop that is that you know you could get
out the old calking gun and simply go around. But
it's intensive, okay, because we're talking about every hole everywhere,
(23:05):
holes meaning recess can lights in the ceiling, electrical switches,
and the boxes that are behind them, electrical outlets, and
the boxes that they're boy I mean literally any hole anywhere.
You could if you made it a multi day project,
you're like, hey, over the next four weeks, I'm committed
(23:25):
to caulking around each one of these and inside all
these things to air seal. You would eventually effectively air
seal your house, or you could do this, you could
hire an air sealing company. And this is how they
do it. It's very very cool. They will mask off
and this is for new construction kind of stuff. They
would mask off the HVAC openings, they would mask off
(23:49):
windows and doors, okay. And then what they do is
they bring in several units that are these little tanks
and these emitters that aerosolize essentially calking compound they make.
They'll turn air, they'll micronize it into almost a fog. Okay,
these tiny little particulars particulates of silicone based calking compound
(24:15):
and in every room, and then they'll put a massive
blower that air pressurizes the house, put so much air
pressure in the house that now air is starting to
leak out all of the leaks. Combine that with all
of this fog that they fill a room with of
aerosolized calking compound, and guess what happens. The calking compound
(24:39):
finds the leaks because that's where the air is moving,
and they seal it. You know those tires that the
fix a flat kits some of you have in your cars,
that little aerosolized can. You know, it's got foam inside.
And so you get a flat tire, if it's not
a blowout or a big tear, you get it a
flat tire and you hook that up to the tire
(24:59):
valve and you know, you press the valve down and
it doesn't completely real refill the tire, but it adds
some air to the tire, and it also injects this
foam on the inside of the tire. And the idea
is that since there's pressure inside the tire, the pressure
is blowing air out the leak, and it blows the
foam out through the leak, and then the foam blocks
the leak. That's air ceiling a house or HVAC events
(25:23):
or what have you. It's very cool. It's very high tech,
and it can absolutely dramatically reduce the amount of air
filtration in and out of a house. You should look
it up. The videos, watching the videos, very very cool.
Just look up air ceiling a house. You'll find a
ton of YouTube videos on it and you'll see how
it works.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
All right, that's.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
All I got for you today. That's all I got
time for you today in terms of insulation. Like I said,
it's a beautiful fall day. So I'm going to leave
you with this thought. Today very very special day for
me because autumn is my favorite time of year, and
today is the first day of autumn.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Back to school, homecoming, football is beginning, Baseball is culminating.
Warm days, cool nights, crisp bear wind leaves, apples, pumpkins, cinnamon, nutmeg,
maple syrup, harvest festivals, farmers' markets, corn mazes, hay rides,
(26:32):
golden sunsets, shorter days, the best food.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Of the year, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Firelight, blankets, jackets, deep feelings, long walks, long talks. If
all four seasons happened in just a day, then I
think sleeping would be winter, morning would be spring, the
long work day summer. But after work is done, once
(26:58):
we're back home in our own safe space, and the
sun dips into the horizon and fills the western sky
with gold and light, and the shadows of trees grow long,
and we peel off that costume we have to wear
for work, and we put on something comfortable and soft
and unpretentious and free, and our thoughts turn to dinner
(27:19):
and what we're gonna do with the time we have
before our heads hit the pillow once again. That time
of day. That's autumn, the time when nature herself is
telling us that it's okay to drop your leaves, take
care of yourself, settle in, and just be. Autumn says
(27:41):
to us, things are changing, time is passing.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Hey, where are you? How are you?
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And what is really important in your life? And that's
why I love this time of year.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It is my absolute favorite time of year.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I cannot begin to tell you how important and it
is for me this year that it's here, but it is,
and I am very glad that it's here. And my
only encouragement for you is that you embrace it fully,
can get out there and use it to start building
yourself a beautiful light.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
We will see you right back here next weekend.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
anytime on demand on the iHeart Radio app
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp, the
House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to home where.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Every week we help you better understand that place where
you live. I am Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer, here
with you live like I am every weekend Saturday mornings
from six to eight Pacific time, Sunday mornings nine to
noon Pacific time. Welcome to the program. Welcome to the
third hour of our fine little program. We are talking
(00:32):
insulation today. Not a very exciting sexy concept. I'm trying
my best to keep it as interesting as possible, but
an immensely useful and practical and valuable thing when it
comes to our homes, especially well no matter where you live,
all right, insulation is simply the reality now.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I get asked all the time, Dean these days.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
You know, with the things advancing the way they are
in every area, especially in home design and home construction
and so on, do you find it hard to keep
up with the regions and how different things are from
one region to the next. Like you know, you are
(01:17):
based out of southern California here, and you are speaking
in our live local show here on KFI to southern Cali,
greater southern California, but also via the stream, we're talking
to people all over the country, and there are folks
all over the country who are listening. So how different
it is to talk to people in Florida than SoCal
(01:39):
and Portland and in Maine and in the Midwest. And
how do you keep up with all of that? Well,
here's the nice thing. By and large, that's not where
things are going. Diversity is not where things are going
in terms of basic home construction. In fact, if anything, now,
(02:00):
there's always a bunch of different ways to you know,
to skin a cat, as it were, sorry Peter, to
build a home as it were. But what's happening is
that since we are all learning the value of certain
aspects of home construction, things are not diversifying the way
(02:21):
you would think. In fact, the shell, especially when it
comes to basic construction, in the shell of a home,
they're actually all becoming more and more similar. And so
the reality is if you are living in you know,
northern New England or in North Dakota, where the winters
are just punishing, and versus living in New Mexico where
(02:47):
the summers are just punishing, The fact of the matter
is we are building those two homes in many regards
today the same because insulation is not just like we've
been saying, about keeping your house warm, it's also about
keeping it cool. And so this is really a universal
message to everybody. Insulation helps every home, no matter where
(03:11):
you find it. Okay, So that being said, where are
we at in the conversation. That's a really good question.
I have to find my place here and figure out
where we are.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
We were talking about before the break that the best
attic insulation is not rolled insulation but blown in. Now
blown in has a couple of objections other than it's
messy and you know, hey, I wanted to store my
Christmas stuff up there. I'm sorry about that, but find
(03:44):
another place to store your decorations and long term storage
other than the attic. Let the attic do its job
and to be a fantastically insulated space. But the objections,
the practical objections to blown in insulation up there is
number one. I've got attic eves vents, and if I
(04:06):
blow in insulation all the way over to the edge
of the roofline, then then that's going to get in
the way of my attic eves and my my attic.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Is not going to breathe.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, well placed objection, but not actually relevant if we
insulate the right way, if you are switching from bat
insulation to blown in, or if you're just redoing ancient
blown in insulation, you do need to protect those attic events.
(04:36):
But there are these little they're polystyrene baffles, their baffles,
and they they slide into the rafter bay, right up
against the edge of the roofline, and they basically allowed
They're like a snorkel. Think of it like that. They
allow this little tiny air gap from the event to
(04:59):
go up the roofline and breathe out and do its job,
but protect it. And that way you can blow insulation
right in up against the edge there. If you don't,
if that's not a good enough word picture for you,
then then just look at attic eve vent baffle online
and you'll see what I'm talking about. But basically it
(05:21):
allows you to blow in insulation right up against your
attic eve's and not block them because they still breathe
into the attic and they're super inexpensive. I think they're
like two dollars for a little vent baffle for each
rafter bang, and that's not that much when you work
it all the way around the roof, right, that's objection
number one. Objection number two is if I don't use
(05:44):
rolled insulation in my attic, then I have to hire somebody.
And I was going to diy this project myself to
save costs. That's also false these days, way false. These days.
Blown in insulation machines are one of the biggest home
owner rental units on the market these days. They're at
(06:05):
every rental yard, They're at all the big boxes, like
the Home Depot rental area. I just saw a guy
renting one the other day. They sit outside so they
don't have to bring in the noise. They usually have
like one hundred foot long hose that you draw inside
the house, run up into the attic, and that's what
(06:25):
you control. They start and stop with a radio controller,
so you literally have control of starting and stopping the flow.
You don't have to have a crew of people there
helping you. And they cost about two hundred dollars a day.
I think I just saw that on the home Depot
website that a cellulose blown in insulation rental machine is
(06:47):
like one ninety nine for the day and first day
often free if you buy a large enough amount of
insulation for the projects. So they're not and I would
argue they're easier to you. It's easier to insulate an
attic with blown in with a hose than it is
crawling all the way across an attic into every little
(07:10):
nook and cranny trying to cut in a rolled bat insulation.
So there you go. That's my argument right there. You
can totally totally do it if you were in that
DIY mood. But either way, it's an inexpensive process relative
to some of the things that you could spend some
serious money on with the house. All right, now, we
(07:31):
got to talk about the elephant in the room, those
empty exterior walls. If you live in an older home
and you don't have insulation in your outside walls, what
do you do? We'll talk about it right after.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Appreciate all of you who listen, who take time out
of your Sunday mornings, especially on a gorgeous daylight the day,
to spend some time thinking and talking about your home.
We're not doing any sexy design stuff today. We're talking insulation.
It's super uber practical, trying to make it as interesting
as possible and as relevant as possible for you. And
(08:16):
I don't know, I think I'm doing okay, I'm doing
okay with it. All right, let's continue because we've still
got a lot to cover here before we are done.
Another misnomer about, or misconception about insulation in the home
is that, you know what, I can't insulate my exterior
(08:37):
walls without tearing off all my stucco or the dry wall.
And that is technically Now the spirit of this, I
think is probably not a misconception, but technically that is false.
You can hire an insulating company to come in and
blow cellulose fiber in or mineral wool fiber, depending on
(09:02):
their recommendation, into a pre existing, already sealed up exterior wall.
Now it's going to make a little bit of disruption
because every single stud bay has to have access to
(09:22):
the hose that blows in the insulation. Okay, that means
every sixteen inches or so, we're making like a two
inch hole in the wall. Now, sometimes that two inch
hole can be made in the stucco outside, since it
was for a while very very common. More often than not,
(09:44):
I see homeowners electing to do the two inch holes
on the inside of the house through the dry wall.
But it all depends, Okay. Yes, it is disruptive, Yes
it is tedious, and yes, sometimes depending on whether your
home has fire blocks in the walls. Fire blocks meaning
(10:08):
the mid span of the height of the wall, there's
a block, a horizontal block running across that blocks the bay.
You may need a hole up above and a hole
down below. Every sixteen inch. That's a lot of holes,
a lot of holes in my house. Is it worth it? Well,
in the end, of course, of course it's worth it
(10:30):
because holes can be patched. And then guess what. Now
you've got fully insulated exterior walls, and the insulation companies
know how to blow it in. They know how to
minimize the settlement of that blown in cellulo sand or
mineral wool fiber inside the walls. And you know all
(10:51):
as well. However, you know, I'm not pulling any punches
with you. It can be a thing. It's a thing.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Now. Setting that aside.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
I have seen homeowners, and rightly so, simply elect to
save money. DIY this themselves. And here's how they do it.
I know this sounds drastic, but they've removed the drywall
from the exterior walls of the rooms of their homes. Okay,
(11:24):
that's not most of your drywall. In fact, that's a
minimal amount of your overall drywall. And basically, by removing
the drywall, let's say you're in a bedroom, Let's say
you got a twelve foot long wall and then eight
foot high. You know, that's about, you know, about four
sheets of drywall overall. At the most, drywall is not
(11:45):
very expensive. And by removing the old drywall, it totally
exposes the inside of the exterior wall, all the studs
are there. And then you can use that lovely back
insulation that you've been wanting to use and roll that in,
put that into the walls, and reapply the drywall and repaint. Now,
(12:07):
at the end of the day, if you're doing that yourself,
you're going to save a ton of money over having
an insulation service. You know, make holes in all of
your walls, and you're getting the best possible no settlement
insulation in those exterior walls. Essentially restoring or making that
exterior wall insulated the way we would if we did
(12:31):
it brand new, new build and it just doesn't get
better than that. And that's something to think about. But
I'm not sitting here trying to gloss over the fact
that it isn't disruptive to do. I'm simply telling you,
if you're committed to energy savings on your home and
you do live in a energy extreme environment, Okay, if
(12:53):
you live in a place in the Southwest in which
there are not just a few days above one hundred,
but we above one hundred. If you live somewhere in
the Midwest and where there's not just a few freezing
cold days, but a lot of, you know, twenty degree
days during the winter, then you should seriously consider, seriously
(13:17):
consider insulating those exterior walls. There's just no way around
it being a good idea. Okay, I know it's disruptive,
but there you go. Okay, Now, when we return to
the conversation right after the break, I want to talk
about the materials that are available to you, because there
is a wide range of materials, and we also want
(13:39):
to talk about air sealing the house. That's something that's
the leaky coat zipping up your jacket that we haven't
fully discussed that, and there are ways to do it that.
If you're building new or a major remodel, there are
ways to do it without you having to go to
any great lengths of effort. You can just hire a
(13:59):
company need to come in and air seal the house.
It's very high tech and it's very cool. We'll talk
about it.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Your Home with Dean Sharp, the house whisper.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
We are talking insulation today, and I want to get
back to that conversation with you right now.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Where'd I leave off? What was I?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh? Time to talk materials. Time to talk about materials
and air sealing your home and a cool way of
doing it if you're doing a major remodel or a
new build as well. Not so much recommended for folks
who already have all the furniture and everything finished inside
the house.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
And I'll explain why.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
But anyway, materials available today, they come down to essentially
four different or five different kinds of materials available for
insulating your home. Number one the classic old fiberglass insulation.
Fiberglass still hold in its own in the insulation market,
(15:07):
mainly because it is among the least expensive, may perhaps
the least expensive in generally speaking insulation. Yes it's made
out of tiny, little microscopic shards of glass, and yes
it's itchy on your skin, and yes it can get
messy and weird. And you should, always, by the way,
(15:28):
whenever you're installing fiberglass or rock wool mineral insulation, be
wearing a protective mask, and your insulation company should be
doing the same, and also ceiling off areas of the
home from the area that they're working in so that
none of that dust and our particulate matter can get
near you, because it's not good to breathe in at all.
(15:52):
Most of us don't react well to breathing in glass
into our lungs or the tiny little dust particles of
mineral wool fibers. So fiberglass insulation still doing well. You
need more fiberglass than some of the other forms of
insulation in terms of size or loft in order to
(16:13):
get the same R value, but you can get it.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
It comes in bats, as you know, and also it
can be blown in as well. Fiberglass does a good
job of maintaining its loft because it's very cotton candy ish,
and it holds together in that structure. And by the way,
I should take this moment to make something really clear,
there's nothing magical about insulating fibers in general, the fiber itself.
(16:43):
What's important is the kind of fiber and the loft
of the fiber. Okay, now, going back to the clothes
analogy that I was using earlier in the show, I
want you to think of a down jacket.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
A down jacket is big and puffy, full of down
feathers inside. Its insulating value is dependent upon how puffy
it is. Okay, the amount of feathers, but also how
puffy it is. If you, and take this from an
experienced backpacker, if you've got a down sleeping bag or
(17:18):
a down jacket, I mean, they're incredibly warm, and they
will keep you warm and toasty even in the most
severe environments, right up until the moment when they get wet.
When they get wet, they get flat. And as soon
as they go flat, it does not matter that there
are a bunch of feathers in there. They're all laying
flat and they're no longer holding air space trapped. So
(17:42):
a down jacket loses almost all of its insulating value
when it gets rolled flat or when it gets wet,
which is, you know, kind of the equivalent the same
with insulations. So can you buy our thirty insulation, a
big old like twelve inch thick bat of insulation and
(18:04):
shove it into a two by four wall? Yes, you can.
Will it be R thirty once you've compressed it down
to three and a half inches, No, it won't be anymore.
It will just be maybe just slightly higher than if
you just bought the R eleven or R thirteen insulation
for the two by four walls. So smushing insulation down
(18:28):
makes it lose it's our value. It has to stay
at the puff puffiness level that it was designed to
stay at. So fiberglass insulation least expensive fiber out there
on the market rock wool, mineral wool insulation. I love
this stuff myself. I love it in walls, especially in
(18:48):
bat form, because not only do you get a little
bit more our value for the same space, because it's
more dense than fiberglass. I also love the fact that
you stuff wear a mask because of the dust. But
it's dust. It creates its own little dust, which is
a danger to breathe just like fiberglass, but it doesn't
(19:09):
have sharp fibers, so it's not gonna make your skin itch.
That's another thing I love about it. The third thing
I love about it is that not only do you
get a little bit more our value per the dimensionality
of the insulation, but it's also way better sound insulation
because it's more dense, So a lot of benefits I
think to mineral wool or rock wool insulation. In the
(19:33):
blown in department, you can blow in fiberglass or rock wool,
but cellulose insulation is my preferred fiber for blown in.
Cellulase has no sharp fibers, no dust associated with it.
It also gets treated with borates, which makes it a
moisture resistant, mildew resistant, rodent resistant, and fire resistant, which
(19:57):
is just a fantastic domination of things to put up
into your attic. So I do love blown in Cellulose
s insulation also a little bit more dense than fiberglass.
Blown in also holds its loft well, and I just
think there are a lot of great advantages to cellulose.
But at the end of the day, it's a tool bag,
(20:18):
all right. You pick the stuff that works best for you.
And finally, finally for those of you who are really
in an environment worthy of this, and this is more
new construction in terms of that, and that is spray
foam insulation in the walls. This is the highest amount
(20:39):
of our value for the least amount of inches spray
foam insulation. It also air seals the walls that it
goes in. Spray Foam insulation is absolutely fantastic, but it's
also the most expensive of all of the options. So
just know, now you've got a toolbag, do your own research,
(21:00):
figure out where's works best for you. All right, air
sealing the house, you know what. All to leave that
to the other side of the break. So let's go
to the break and then we'll come back. The last
thing we're going to discuss today is air ceiling of
major remodels and new construction, or maybe even the attic
and duct leakage. There is a very very high tech
(21:22):
process that can be used to seal HVAC ducks, addicts,
and new construction of an entire home. It's cool and
I want to tell you about it before we're done.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Are you feeling it? Are you feeling autumn out there?
M m m mmm m it's feeling good. I'm just
telling you make plans, make plans to get out in
this weather, be a part of the world around you.
Enjoy it, embrace it. All right, we've been talking insulation today.
(22:02):
Here we are at the end of another three hours
of information packed show. I mean I crammed as much
in here as I possibly could for you so that
you've got a full view of insulation. One more thing
I want to talk to you about. This is only
gonna apply in certain situations. If you're building a new home,
absolutely you should listen to this. If you're doing a
(22:23):
major remodel, also, if you think you have leaky HVAC
duct work, also listen to this. And if you've got
attic space that you think is leaking from the rest
of the house, this would apply to you too, And
that is air cealing the house. Now, when I mentioned
(22:44):
earlier the idea of using calking, I didn't actually sorry
getting ahead of myself here, when I talked about air
leakage air infiltration into a home. One of the ways
to stop that is that you know you could get
out the old calking gun and simply go around. But
it's intensive, okay, because we're talking about every hole everywhere,
(23:05):
holes meaning recess can lights in the ceiling, electrical switches,
and the boxes that are behind them, electrical outlets, and
the boxes that they're boy I mean literally any hole anywhere.
You could if you made it a multi day project,
you're like, hey, over the next four weeks, I'm committed
(23:25):
to caulking around each one of these and inside all
these things to air seal. You would eventually effectively air
seal your house, or you could do this, you could
hire an air sealing company. And this is how they
do it. It's very very cool. They will mask off
and this is for new construction kind of stuff. They
would mask off the HVAC openings, they would mask off
(23:49):
windows and doors, okay. And then what they do is
they bring in several units that are these little tanks
and these emitters that aerosolize essentially calking compound they make.
They'll turn air, they'll micronize it into almost a fog. Okay,
these tiny little particulars particulates of silicone based calking compound
(24:15):
and in every room, and then they'll put a massive
blower that air pressurizes the house, put so much air
pressure in the house that now air is starting to
leak out all of the leaks. Combine that with all
of this fog that they fill a room with of
aerosolized calking compound, and guess what happens. The calking compound
(24:39):
finds the leaks because that's where the air is moving,
and they seal it. You know those tires that the
fix a flat kits some of you have in your cars,
that little aerosolized can. You know, it's got foam inside.
And so you get a flat tire, if it's not
a blowout or a big tear, you get it a
flat tire and you hook that up to the tire
(24:59):
valve and you know, you press the valve down and
it doesn't completely real refill the tire, but it adds
some air to the tire, and it also injects this
foam on the inside of the tire. And the idea
is that since there's pressure inside the tire, the pressure
is blowing air out the leak, and it blows the
foam out through the leak, and then the foam blocks
the leak. That's air ceiling a house or HVAC events
(25:23):
or what have you. It's very cool. It's very high tech,
and it can absolutely dramatically reduce the amount of air
filtration in and out of a house. You should look
it up. The videos, watching the videos, very very cool.
Just look up air ceiling a house. You'll find a
ton of YouTube videos on it and you'll see how
it works.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
All right, that's.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
All I got for you today. That's all I got
time for you today in terms of insulation. Like I said,
it's a beautiful fall day. So I'm going to leave
you with this thought. Today very very special day for
me because autumn is my favorite time of year, and
today is the first day of autumn.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Back to school, homecoming, football is beginning, Baseball is culminating.
Warm days, cool nights, crisp bear wind leaves, apples, pumpkins, cinnamon, nutmeg,
maple syrup, harvest festivals, farmers' markets, corn mazes, hay rides,
(26:32):
golden sunsets, shorter days, the best food.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Of the year, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Firelight, blankets, jackets, deep feelings, long walks, long talks. If
all four seasons happened in just a day, then I
think sleeping would be winter, morning would be spring, the
long work day summer. But after work is done, once
(26:58):
we're back home in our own safe space, and the
sun dips into the horizon and fills the western sky
with gold and light, and the shadows of trees grow long,
and we peel off that costume we have to wear
for work, and we put on something comfortable and soft
and unpretentious and free, and our thoughts turn to dinner
(27:19):
and what we're gonna do with the time we have
before our heads hit the pillow once again. That time
of day. That's autumn, the time when nature herself is
telling us that it's okay to drop your leaves, take
care of yourself, settle in, and just be. Autumn says
(27:41):
to us, things are changing, time is passing.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Hey, where are you? How are you?
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And what is really important in your life? And that's
why I love this time of year.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It is my absolute favorite time of year.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I cannot begin to tell you how important and it
is for me this year that it's here, but it is,
and I am very glad that it's here. And my
only encouragement for you is that you embrace it fully,
can get out there and use it to start building
yourself a beautiful light.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
We will see you right back here next weekend.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
anytime on demand on the iHeart Radio app
Home with Dean Sharp News
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