Charleston Homes

Many people don’t realize that a poorly insulated home can cost a significant amount of money, in addition to making their living conditions very uncomfortable. When dealing with an older Charleston home, most of these are poorly insulated, and some older homes in the southwest may have no insulation at all.

The truth is that with skyrocketing energy costs, not having adequate insulation is just not acceptable. Your heating and cooling bills are probably through the roof, so if you are thinking about upgrading your insulation, what kind of options do you have?

The first thing you can do as to weather strip doors and windows on your Charleston real estate, which involves installing flashing in order to make sure that little air can escape between the cracks between a door and its frame, and a window and its frame.

Another step you can take to insulate your Charleston home is to put in insulation into the attic, which can usually be blown and it is very effectively cutting your heating and cooling costs, as heat rises upward. Just because you have insulation in your attic don’t think that you don’t need more, it if you have less than 4 inches in your attic, adding some blown in insulation will probably help cut down on your energy costs.

So what it is insulation made out of?

Insulation is usually made of fiberglass, although other insulating materials may also be utilized. Asbestos no longer comes in insulating material, and what you should be on the lookout for is R rating, and there are different R ratings for different areas of your Charleston home. When you are talking about attics, a rating of R11 is usually good, whereas R 36 may be used in a very cold northeastern climate.

Another insulating tip is to simply upgrade your windows, as single pane windows only have a rating of R-1, whereas double pane windows have an R-rating of around six. You may also would consider if your walls of your Charleston home are fully insulated, but this can be a very expensive process as existing drywall will have to be torn off and replaced.

The best option for insulating walls is to put a layer of insulation over your existing walls, and then to layer it with another layer of drywall. This is in itself a very expensive procedure, so it is recommended to use other means in order to insulate what ever you can in your Charleston property.

How much does installing installation in a house cost?

For an average size Charleston house of around 2000 square foot, having insulation blown into an attic is usually around $1000, and you are mostly paying for labor costs. This can usually be done in about a few hours, and you should not try this yourself as breathing and installation can cause damage to the eyes and the lungs.

Again, if you’re trying to install installation in the walls, this is a very expensive procedure, and it is not recommended as it is more cost effective to just pay the extra heating and cooling costs in this instance.

With how much of a return on your investment will you make with installation of insulation?

Buyers expect Charleston homes to be properly insulated, so they are not willing to usually pay extra money for this feature of the property. You may try to emphasize what your heating and cooling costs are, which may be a good selling point. In addition, if you have installed double pane windows, this is a very strong selling point beyond the energy savings that you can enjoy.

You may want to calculate the amount of energy costs that you will save, and extrapolate this amount over 15 years or however long you will use your Charleston home. You may be surprised how much of your cost you can recoup in energy savings alone.