Latest / Ask The Experts / Insulating Blanket with Larson Home Services
Transcript
- 0:06Eighth, six thirteen ten WIBA Madison in the morning and ask the experts.
- 0:12Joined this morning by our good friend Andrew Larson from Larson Home Services online.
- 0:18Larson Home Services dot com. That's l A R S O N Home Services
- 0:24dot com. But telephone number six O eight five three five forty three forty
- 0:28three. That's five three five forty three forty three for Larson Home Services.
- 0:32Andrew, how was your fourth You have a great weekend? It was fantastic.
- 0:36It was long. Yeah, it was hot. Um, you know,
- 0:42we really want some rain. Everything's dry, but when you've got family
- 0:45up for the fourth nice dry hot weather was pretty wonderful. So it's pretty
- 0:51good. And thankfully, I don't know if it's if it's the same way
- 0:54by you. We have not had many mosquitoes, which is a we'll take
- 0:57it. There's one, not at all. I mean they might have something
- 1:00to do with the fact that it hasn't rained in there, that we've had
- 1:03some rain, but it's it's not enough. Yeah, we're very hot.
- 1:07It's funny you talk about heat and one of the you've got a couple of
- 1:11specialties that you got many specialties at large Stome Services, but a couple that
- 1:15especially apply to the climates. It's specifically the climate inside your home and making
- 1:19sure that what you're paying, whether it's paying the cool or paying the heat,
- 1:25is being retained. And one of the really cool things about large stome
- 1:29services, and we haven't talked about insulation for a while now, is the
- 1:33importance of making sure that that you're really sealing up that house and making sure
- 1:38that as we're talking about these hot temperatures, you're cooling the inside of your
- 1:42home, that that cold air stays put and is inundated by the coal or
- 1:46hot outside air and hot outside temperatures. Correct, So you said something really
- 1:52key there. We want to make sure that the cold stays put. Yeah,
- 1:56it's actually not how it works shone Now, Yeah, it's really not
- 2:00how it actually works. And that's what we might think. And it's the
- 2:05insulation or doctor Energy Savor part of our business really slows down in the summer.
- 2:08And I don't know if it's because maybe we actively we actively seek less
- 2:17doctor Energy Savor work because we're so busy with gutter shutter and so busy with
- 2:21roofing, but but really we take a very scientific approach when it comes to
- 2:27home performance work. And there's really there's two. There's three ways that heat
- 2:30transfers. We've got convection, conduction and radiant heat transfer. When we're cooling
- 2:35our home, that cool heat or that cool that cool heat, that cool
- 2:40from the AC is not seeking outside. It's actually the heat from outside that
- 2:46is seeking inside. And most people don't think about the importance of insulation in
- 2:53the summer, but one might actually say it's more important in the summer than
- 3:00it is in the winter, because what happens is our atticts will literally turn
- 3:07into radiant heaters for the conditioned space right below them. If you were to
- 3:15go up. I don't know how you know, I haven't even checked the
- 3:19weather today. I just look outside them like me, it's probably gonna be
- 3:21really hot. Yeah, just let's looking at the high ear hohere are we
- 3:25today today, looking at a high of eighty six, so almost ninety degrees
- 3:29today, So it's going to be hot, right hot, no clouds.
- 3:34We're getting used to that. So in your attic it's probably going to be
- 3:39roughly one hundred and fifty degrees one hundred and forty one hundred fifty degrees,
- 3:44So that ceiling right below your attic turns into a radiant heater, and we
- 3:50can go on a home and we obviously we bring our our thermal imaging camera
- 3:54and we can you know, we can shoot it at the floor and show
- 3:57you how show what the tempa is and shoot at that sea and that ceiling
- 4:00thingill light up and glow red. Now that's where sufficient insulation really really really
- 4:08comes into key, because there is a thermal break there. So if we've
- 4:11got our seventeen inches or some people put in fourteen, technically we call for
- 4:17an R forty nine. Here in this climate, we always go in our
- 4:21sixty because honestly, the insulation part of the job is probably the least expensive
- 4:27part of the whole job. So putting more insulation in it is easy.
- 4:30It's kind of the rest of the work, the air ceiling, the removal
- 4:32all that stuff. But in the summer, that insulation in your attach.
- 4:36If we get up there and we're finding rolled pink insulation, which we see
- 4:43all the time, it's always incomplete, it's never thick enough. There's always
- 4:47gaps. Your home is going to be very very very hard to keep cool.
- 4:53Now, if we get up there and we do work and we air
- 4:56seal and we reinsulate properly. Now you've got seventeen inches of amazing true soft
- 5:01cellulose insulation up there, you're good to go. There is a large thermal
- 5:09break which is going to keep that ceiling cool, which is going to stop
- 5:12that read that radiant heat transfer and allow you to heat or cool your home
- 5:16a lot more efficiently. What really comes into play in the winter because heat
- 5:20rises, and we talk about stack effect, is the air ceiling. So
- 5:25we want to have good air ceiling and insulation. But honestly, one might
- 5:29say that the insulation is actually more important when it's hot outside, which it's
- 5:33very opposite of what most people think. It's interesting when you when you talk
- 5:38to Andrew and a little bit of the knowledge that that you share from doctor
- 5:43Energy Saver and what you've learned over the years and in your line of work,
- 5:46is it reminds me of you you talk about insulation being you know,
- 5:49that's kind of the the easy thing. That's that's the kind of the the
- 5:55you know, and it comes to costs and things, throw some insulation duck
- 5:58good enough, but it's that good enough heart that that's really kind of taking
- 6:00it that final mile to with doctor energy saver in sealing up and really not
- 6:05just putting a band aid over something, really taking care of the whole situation.
- 6:11It reminds me of like, um, you know, got the air
- 6:13condition you're going at night? It gets cool in the house, it's great
- 6:15to sleep in, but you still need that that that comforter over you just
- 6:18you know you love it. We're spoiled that way. If if I don't
- 6:21know about you, but sometimes my wife will will roll over and she will
- 6:25pull half the covers off of me. Now half of them will still be
- 6:28on, but half will no longer no longer be covered. And I'll tell
- 6:30you what, I'm suddenly massively uncomfortable. Even though there is a there is
- 6:34a layer of insulation on half of my body, on most of my body,
- 6:38I am uncomfortable. And the same thing goes on in your own even
- 6:41though you've got that big puffy layer of insulation in the attic, if there's
- 6:46an area there that that's allowing any type of heat to penetrate and to warm
- 6:49your warm, your cool lair, now you've got Now you've got a problem
- 6:53there and you're uncomfortable that you know that I've not thought of that analogy,
- 6:58but I like it. It's all yours man, very visual. It's a
- 7:05very physical analogy. But yeah, it's it is a blanket for your home.
- 7:10Yeah, we'd actually done some cool tests. I don't know. This
- 7:13is probably seven eight years ago now, it feels like yesterday. But we
- 7:15were working on one of our REPS homes and we went in one day and
- 7:20we did all the removal. Okay, he had he had very, very
- 7:25insufficient insulation. It was probably a nineteen fifties, you know, ranch style
- 7:29home, very insufficient insulation, maybe like five inches and I don't even know
- 7:32what kind of insulation it was. But we removed it and then we did
- 7:36a really good job of air ceiling. And when I say a good job,
- 7:40we did the best job you could do. And we did a whole
- 7:43skim coat of spray foam on the whole floor, so you actually air sealed
- 7:48the entire floor and you got an inch of an inch of spray foam,
- 7:54so there was a little bit of insulation value there, but we never put
- 7:58any actual insulation back in. It got really cold that night and his wife
- 8:03knew that we were doing some work. She was actually at work all day
- 8:07when we did it and he didn't. They just apparently they didn't really talk
- 8:11about it. I don't know he was, I don't know. We don't
- 8:13want to know that would happened there. But anyway, Gee, they could
- 8:18hear kick on and she didn't hear it kick on like she usually does.
- 8:24So what it actually happened is by removing his insulation and doing an air ceiling
- 8:28on the attic floor, we actually made their home more comfortable. And that
- 8:31was before we even put any insulation in. Hence my point of the air
- 8:35ceiling might actually be more important when it's cold, because it stops the stack
- 8:41effect that stops at hot air from leaving home than the actual insulation is.
- 8:46So that's what I wanted to talk about today. It's been super hot,
- 8:50everybody's been trying to cool their homes. The amount of electricity being used to
- 8:54cool homes right now, I would imagine is staggering compared to normal. And
- 9:01you know, just a visit from one of our reps to take a look
- 9:05in the attic, make sure you're air sealed properly, make sure you're insulated
- 9:07properly, it could be huge and in some homes could be a big savings
- 9:15in energy building. I mean, that's not the approach that we take to
- 9:16it because I feel like in this industry, the money savings, money savings,
- 9:22money savings, I feel like that is way overpitched. I feel like
- 9:26it's I feel like people take advantage of that. Yes, there will be
- 9:31money savings. How much that will be nobody really knows because there's way too
- 9:35many factors. I can't tell you if I replace your windows, I'm going
- 9:39to save you half your energy bill. That's crazy talk. I can't tell
- 9:45you if I air seal and insulate your attic, I'm going to save half
- 9:48on your energy bills. Too many factors go into that. But that's meaning
- 9:52your air conditioner and your furnace will be turning on less than normal. So
- 9:56whatever that savings equates to, we really feel it's better in the comfort.
- 10:01In the comfort issue of giving you space back in your home. When you
- 10:05set your air conditioning at seventy two, it's actually achievable and it feels good,
- 10:11helps you live in your home, helps you sleep better at night.
- 10:13So that's the way we like to approach It's it's an amazing approach. And
- 10:18of course we talked doctor Energy Savor and Larsnome Services. They'd love to come
- 10:20out take a look at your house, give you some recommendations on ways that
- 10:24you can, of course make your house more energy efficient. There's so many
- 10:28great reasons to do that, and I'd love too. I always mentioned following,
- 10:31of course Larsnome Services on Facebook and seeing the photographs of some of the
- 10:37before and after the addicts. If you're wondering about the type of work and
- 10:39what it looks like, it is absolutely visually amazing. Then you hear stories
- 10:43of folks not does it make your addict look better? And again that's kind
- 10:46of a geeky thing to think about. I think a lot of homeowners though
- 10:50definitely are thinking about that. The real cool thing is you start hearing stories
- 10:54of folks. As Andrew points out, you know the furnace, the air
- 10:56condition or central air running less and less and less where into air, Noticeable
- 11:01things like that my home is universally the proper temperature. It's comfortable no matter
- 11:05which room I go into. That is some of the great stuff you get
- 11:07with Doctor Energy Saver and Larstome Services. Today is the day pick up the
- 11:11phone, give them a call. Don't let another one of these hot days
- 11:13go by, winter of course will be here in no time. As well.
- 11:16As we look at temperature extremes, we often think Wisconsin cold winters,
- 11:18but we've also got obviously these very hot summers. It's never a bad time
- 11:22to get them in from lar Stom Services. A matter of fact, today
- 11:24is the great time with doctor Energy Savor, the website Doctor Energy Savor for
- 11:28Larstome Services, Larstom Services dot com and the telephone number six O eight five
- 11:31three five forty three forty three. Make those phones ring today, get them
- 11:35out from Larstom Services and doctor Energy Savor six O eight five three five forty
- 11:39three forty three. Andrew, it's always great chatting with you, my friend.
- 11:41You enjoy this beautiful day. All right, Let's talk next week and
- 11:45again that number six O eight five three five forty three forty three. Kevin
- 11:48ham hams Arbercare comes your way next right here. Thirteen ten to Wiba