Fiberglass Attic Insulation Vs Reflective
Remember traditional attic insulation has r value that works to slow conductive heat.
Fiberglass attic insulation vs reflective. Air migrates from warmer spaces toward colder spaces and insulation is designed to help prevent or at least slow that migration. Which is better will depend on the topography of the specific roof you re insulating. If your attic has a lot of nooks and crannies your best bet may be to use loose fill insulation made of fiberglass or cellulose. Radiant barriers reflect radiant heat.
It s easier to incorporate radiant barriers into a new home but you can also install them in an existing home especially if it has an open attic. Reflective insulation is significantly thinner than fiberglass insulation. What is the right insulation for an attic. The reflectix site provides a great range of information about this and about how it differs from other types of insulation.
Both types of heat are trying to enter your home on a hot summer day. The sun heats up the roof and then the heat is transferred by radiant heat across the attic space until it hits the attic insulation. Fiberglass insulation comes in larger batted rolls but is also found as a blow insulation that is primarily used in attics. In a new house an installer typically drapes a rolled foil radiant barrier foil face down between the roof rafters to.
Next i compared adding an additional r 19 to my existing r 19 level of attic insulation vs installing radiant barrier and the results actually surprised me a little. Radiant barriers and reflective systems. The key to using reflectix properly is that you should take a little time to understand how reflective insulation works in the first place. The radiant barrier resulted in roughly 4 times more savings than the added insulation.
Fiberglas insulation has been the undisputed standard for buildings for many years but foil insulation is the new contender. Achieving greater r values in attics the higher the r value the better the thermal performance of the insulation.