With everything you have to worry about day to day, a cold house ranks higher than most. It’s even worse when you keep cranking up the thermostat and the back bedroom still won’t get past 62 degrees. In the same league is when nobody’s touched the thermostat, and the boiler seems fine, but the gas bill still comes in higher than last winter’s. Usually, these might be signs of poor home insulation.
One of these issues on its own might be minor. Two or three together usually mean something bigger is going on, and that’s a good time to call an insulation contractor in New York. They can check the attic, walls, and crawl spaces and help you decide which repairs can’t wait.
What Are the Most Common Signs of Poor Home Insulation?
Sometimes a home will show symptoms of insufficient insulation, and here are a few:
- A room or two that’s always colder in winter and hotter in summer than the rest of the house
- Increase in heating and cooling bills that you can’t explain
- Walls, ceilings, and floors that feel cold when you touch them
- When you feel drafts coming through your outlets, baseboards, or the window trims
- Ice dams on the roof edge: they happen when heat from the attic melts the snow, and the water refreezes at the eaves
- The boiler or furnace needing to run longer than usual to hold the temperature
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, heating and air conditioning made up 52% of the average American home’s energy use in 2020. If warm air is leaking out through your attic, you’ll see it on your next bill.
How Can Poor Insulation Affect Indoor Comfort and Air Quality?
There’s no comfort in a poorly insulated home. Heat always moves toward colder spaces. With thin insulation, warmth leaks out all winter, and in July the attic heat pours into the upstairs bedrooms. You end up with a 72-degree living room, a 64-degree bedroom, and a thermostat you can’t stop fiddling with.
The air quality also becomes a problem since those same gaps start letting outside air in. ENERGY STAR points out that a well-sealed, well-insulated home lets in less pollen, dust, pests and street noise. Insulation matters for moisture, too. When humid air from cooking or a hot shower reaches a cold wall, it condenses, and mold grows on that dampness. That’s why the EPA recommends insulating walls. A musty smell, peeling paint or dark patches in room corners can mean the walls aren’t insulated well enough.
What Signs of Poor Insulation Should You Look for in Different Areas of Your Home?
You need to physically inspect your house for symptoms of insufficient insulation:
Attic
Look across the attic floor. If the insulation sits level with or below the floor joists, ENERGY STAR says you likely need more. For homes in New York City and other Climate Zone 4A areas, ENERGY STAR recommends R-60 for an uninsulated attic, or R-49 if the attic already has 3 to 4 inches of insulation.
Also, check for gray streaks on the insulation. Look for rusty nail tips sticking through the roof deck, too. These signs might mean warm, moist air is leaking up from below.
Walls
Touch the walls, especially when it’s windy or during winter. If they feel cold, then you could have an issue. Paint bubbling near the ceiling is another sign your insulation may not be doing its job. To check, turn off the power to an outlet on an exterior wall, take off the cover plate and shine a flashlight into the gap. If there is an empty space, that wall needs insulation.
Basement and Crawl Space
Cold floors above a crawl space, a musty basement, pipes freezing in winter, or chilly air near the rim joist (the board on top of the foundation wall) can mean there is no insulation below the main floor.
Windows and Doors
If your windows fog up in the morning or there are drafts around the window trim, it’s highly possible you have air leaks. You fix this by weatherstripping for small gaps. But if you have bigger leaks, they might need sealing behind the trim.
Conclusion
Bad insulation drives up energy bills, makes the house harder to keep comfortable and lowers the air quality inside. To check whether your home has this problem, look for uneven temperatures between rooms, cold walls, ice dams, drafts and musty corners. For more context on how upgrades improve comfort, see how better insulation can make your home more comfortable. Even one of these signs is worth a call to a professional. Left alone, the problem only gets more expensive to fix.
