How well is your home insulated?
February in Canada. The excitement of the holidays is long over. The reprieve of late March’s spring temperatures is still weeks away. We can limit our outdoor exposure to short sprints to and from the car, but that February chill seems to follow us around. This time of year we get a lot of similar calls:
“I’m sitting in my living room; why do I still feel cold?!”
That’s a complicated question. There are lots of reasons your home might feel cold, even with the furnace cranked. Improperly installed doors and windows create drafts. There might be cold air coming in through gaps in the baseboard trim or electrical outlets and switches on exterior walls. But what has the biggest impact on your home’s heat retention (and your heating bill)?
Insulation.
Insulation is the hidden blanket that protects your home from our harsh winters and sweltering summers, and most Canadian homes are ill-equipped for our temperamental climate. Even relatively new houses often have inadequate insulation. The Ontario Building Code dictates a minimum level of insulation that must be met when building new houses. They use an R-rating system: the higher the R-rating, the better the product resists the transference of heat. Prior to 1996, houses needed to be insulated to a minimum of R32. That has been steadily increasing as the Code updates; the current minimum for a new build is R50.
So, as long as your house is insulated with an acceptable R-rating, your house should maintain a comfortable temperature, right? Well, no, not exactly. If you conjure up an image in your mind of standard insulation, what does it look like? Fluffy, pink, almost like cotton candy? This is what is installed in most homes. It goes by many names, but it’s often just called pink insulation. It’s made of fibreglass and under many circumstances it makes a great insulator. It can be layered to create an equivalent R rating to match the current Ontario Building Code. So, what’s the problem?
The problem is that pink insulation is an American product that is tested in California. It performs well in their testing facility; it can block heat transfer from +40°C to +10°C very effectively garnering it roughly an R20 rating. Three layers of this would, technically, translate to an R60 rating and surpass Building Code requirements. However, when you test the same product at -20°C, its R rating is effectively cut in half, and at -40°C the R value is almost non-existent.
Luckily, even if you have pink insulation in your home and the temperature does drop to -40°C, that doesn’t mean the insulation in your walls is -40°C. Inside of the home’s exterior wall will be roughly the difference between the inside and outside temperature. So, your pink insulation is working, just not nearly as effectively as advertised, and usually not enough to meet Building Code.
So, why are so many homes still built with pink insulation? Well, it’s cheaper, for one thing, and builders are often looking for ways to cut costs. But even if they pass the savings on to the homeowner, the homeowner will end up paying far more in the long run. A well insulated house has very little heat loss, which means huge savings on your heating bill.
Our favourite alternative to pink insulation is Roxul, which comes in batts just like the pink but is made of rock-based mineral fibre. It’s the Canadian subsidiary of a Danish company (Rockwool), and it’s specifically engineered to hold up in our harsh winters. Pink insulation is great in warmer regions, but if you live in Canada you need something more substantial to protect your home.