Attic Insulation Upgrades
Upgrading your attic insulation can significantly improve your home's energy efficiency.
Ensuring adequate insulation in your attic, especially in tight spaces like cathedral ceilings, can reduce heat loss and prevent issues such as ice damming. Proper insulation depth and ventilation are crucial for maintaining a comfortable indoor environment and lowering energy bills.
Care for your attic space, and it will care for you!
We know that your home is a large investment, and maintaining that investment is important to you.
Bringing your home’s attic insulation up to modern standards with proper air sealing and newer insulation material increases your home’s comfort year-round. Insulating the attic ceiling is crucial for maintaining climate control within newly converted living spaces and preventing moisture buildup.
Our no-hassle attic insulation upgrades are a quick, easy, and affordable way to dramatically improve the air seal of your building envelope and your home’s overall energy efficiency. Ensuring an airtight attic floor is essential for optimal insulation and energy performance.
A well-insulated building envelope prevents air leaks and heat loss, lowering your energy bills and lengthening the lives of your roof and heating & cooling equipment. Your envelope includes your roof cavity, exterior walls, basement insulation, doors and windows.
With proper attic insulation, you’ll remedy one of the biggest sources of heat loss in your entire home.
What is an attic?
Most homes in Canada have sloped roofs, creating a triangular space inside of them.
This often-overlooked space nestled between the roof and the ceiling of your home is the attic. While it might seem like just a storage area, the attic space plays a crucial role in your home’s energy efficiency. Properly insulated and air-sealed, this space can significantly reduce heat loss and prevent moisture issues, ensuring your home stays comfortable year-round. Whether you’re using it for storage or simply as an empty buffer zone, making sure your attic space is properly insulated is key to maintaining a cozy and energy-efficient home.
Homeowners often convert their attics into extra storage space. Occasionally, people will finish their attic space, transforming it into living space, but doing so often requires extensive renovations.
What does an attic look like?
Typically, attic spaces in Canada have walls sloping inward and that meet each other at the top, mirroring the roof structures seen from the outside. The majority of attic structures feature exposed walls (without insulation). When you visit most Okanagan homes' attics, you'll find the roof rafters/trusses on which the roof sits. And in most Kelowna attics, insulation is only installed on the floors. Few attics have windows but the majority have venting in order to improve airflow.
Unfinished attics generally have little in the way of access points; most often, you can only gain entry to them through small openings in the ceiling of a closet.
What is the attic space for?
What is the purpose of an attic?
In Canada, and especially in the Okanagan, attic structures have to support a significant amount of weight, including the roof and any snow that accumulates throughout the winter.
As mentioned, inside your attic, you’ll see the rafters and trusses—triangular frames that support the roof. Rafters are built on-site and are typically built from heavier lumber so that they can support unique architectural features such as cathedral ceilings. Trusses, on the other hand, tend to be less expensive and are prefabricated—they arrive at the construction site already assembled.
So aside from helping to keep your house cool in summer months and warm during the winter, the attic space plays the critical role of supporting your entire roof!
What's the best type of attic insulation?
Usually loose-filled insulation or batts are installed in the walls of attics. Loose-filled insulation is often less costly to install than batt insulation and provides better protection during proper use if inserted. Of course, there are other types of insulation that may be required depending on your needs and those of your home.
What is the R-value for an attic in Canada? The R-value is a standard measurement that indicates how effectively the insulation holds heat. If the rating is below R-30 (approximately 13 inches), you may need more insulation. In cold climates, such as those we experience in Kelowna, the recommended R-value for attic insulation is 50.
Before upgrading or replacing insulation in your attic, it may be necessary to seal and repair any leaks in the roof. Sometimes, without you knowing, rainwater or melting snow can get into the attic causing the insulation to get wet; unfortunately, wet insulation is not only useless, but can become a breeding ground for mold.
Is it worth adding insulation to an attic? The attic is a vital area of the house, although if not properly built and maintained, there may be many problems that arise—including ice buildup and flooding problems. The attic is essential for the insulation and sealing of the main room as compared to other areas of the house.
If you have an enclosed area such as an attic, it's crucial to ensure that it's properly insulated and sealed. Okanagan Insulation Services will remove your old insulation and get your new insulation installed quickly.
Contact us today to improve your attic and exterior wall insulation with state-of-the art solutions.
Our Services Include:
- Removal of your existing insulation, if needed (Learn about insulation removal)
- Full service blow-in insulation installation to add more insulation over top of your existing attic insulation material if it is in good condition
- Bringing attic insulation up to today’s codes to improve your attics performance
- Adding chute vents along soffits to improve air flow in the attic when and where needed
- Insulating cathedral ceilings to prevent ice dams, air leaks, and ensure proper ventilation
- Installing roof insulation on top of existing roofs or ceilings, including rigid board insulation and air sealing
If you’re installing insulation in BC, you can take advantage of BC Hydro HRRP / Fortis BC Rebates with this quick and easy upgrade!
Our attic insulation materials:
- Poly & Batt insulation
- Blown-in Fibreglass insulation (loose fill insulation)
- Spray foam insulation
Don’t let ‘Old Man Winter’ get you down!
Upgrade your attic insulation r value to protect your home against extreme weather in all seasons!
