How does insulating your home increase its market value?

Obviously, any improvement you bring to your home will increase your property’s market value, but some can do more for it. For instance, insulation will increase its value exponentially more than changing your floor tiles would, because it brings more benefits, all from the financial spectrum. The levels of air-tightness of a home contribute greatly when it comes to either increasing, either decreasing the heating costs and efforts. Completely airtight houses may only need the solar heat, body heat and appliances heat to maintain proper levels of thermal comfort. Many name this type of houses passive houses, because they do not need constant interventions.

While it is tempting to consider first the heat gains of a home, the losses should be the ones to consider the most. Because of this reason, we can differentiate between several types of houses.

• The leaky home – It has solid walls, but unfortunately, poor overall insulation. This translates into poor heating, and for attaining proper levels of thermic comfort, one must supply a 300 kilowatt-hours of energy. Thus, it generates higher bills.
• The modern home – It has double insulation in floors, in the wall cavity and loft, needing half the energy to maintain a similar indoor temperatures.
• The passive home – The one we previously mentioned, it has exquisite insulation, as well as triple glazed windows, being highly performing in terms of air-tightness. It only needs 15 kWh / square meter for maintaining proper levels of heat.

At a simple analysis, we can easily notice that the three types of homes have different heat necessities, generating completely opposite bills.

Although at a first glance, insulation seems to be a simple feature to improve your property’s heat efficiency levels, it is about more than this. However, selecting the appropriate type of insulation and a reliable insulating company is a more complicated task. Advisable would be to first select the company appropriate for such duties and then discuss with them your options. They will certainly provide valuable pieces of advice and pertinent opinions.

For defending your house from the winter’s chills, expensive bills and possibly mould, there are some areas that need to be insulated at any costs. After you research the foam insulation companies market, discuss with them. However, consider the areas below:

• Basement and attic – highly relevant to consider in your insulating process is both your attic and basement as well. By creating a barrier from the external environment with spray foam insulation you will make sure that the large difference between the outdoor and indoor environment won’t affect your house’s heat efficiency levels, thus the costs of your bills. If you only insulate your walls and forget about these two areas, the chances of fluctuating temperatures depending the ones present in the outdoor environment are high. And you will compromise the purpose of insulating your walls, which is preserving an appropriate indoor temperature without overusing the HVAC system. Moreover, water damage is a reality you will be facing if you neglect these areas.
• Exterior and interior walls – although the level of understanding of the importance of proper insulation when it comes to interior and exterior walls is higher than it is in basement and attic’s case, many are still unsure regarding the level in which the lack of such features affect their bills. Many think that having solid walls is a good enough attribute of their houses, and further insulation is futile. But experts advise us on the contrary, to pay great attention not only to insulating our walls, but also to which type of insulation we are opting for. Make sure you select a reputable company and discuss with them your options. Let them assess your current situation and follow their advice, since they are well-documented regarding the latest insulation materials and techniques available out there.
• Around your windows and doorframes – your insulation would not be complete if you were to forget about these two small, yet highly relevant areas. These spaces are guilty of plenty of heat lost from the indoor environment, thus overusing the heating systems you have. On the contrary, properly insulated, these areas will assure you that your home is airtight and it uses derived heating sources to become heat efficient. Just like passive homes do.

A properly insulated property will increase its market value considerably because of the added value it will have. The owner won’t be overspending on heating or other derived issues and in the prospect of a house sale, this will weight a lot.