Winter is the season of colder temperatures and shorter days. If you’re like many Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, NY homeowners, it’s also the season of cold winter drafts in your home. But those chilly rooms and drafty halls can be prevented with upgraded insulation and air sealing from the award winning team at NYS Energy Audits.
Keep reading for home insulation tips to prevent cold drafts and improve comfort.
Attic Insulation Is the Best Place to Start
Most of the heat in your home escapes through the attic, which makes your attic the best place to add home insulation. Uneven and missing insulation and air sealing can allow your inside air to escape upward, creating cold winter drafts. This “chimney effect” is often why upgrading attic insulation delivers a really big bang for the buck. Attic insulation can dramatically lower your heating bills and improve your comfort.
If your home was built before 1979, you likely need new attic insulation! Call NYS Energy Audits to learn more about affordable insulation upgrades for your home.
Air Sealing Works Hand in Hand with Insulation
The other missing part of the solution to drafty rooms in most Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, NY homes is air sealing. Most homes have gaps, cracks, and holes that allow outside air to sneak into your home. This airflow can pass easily through even the best insulation, much like a cold wind can pass through the warmest sweater. For many homes, the accumulation of unsealed gaps can be the same as leaving a window wide open all year round! Air sealing blocks those tiny gaps and holes to allow the insulation to work to specifications. Air sealing is like adding a windbreaker over a sweater to keep cold air from passing through.
What Is the Best Insulation for Cold Weather?
For attics and walls, the best way to reach and fill all the cavities without disruption is blown-in cellulose insulation combined with proper air sealing. Cellulose insulation installed by NYS ENergy Audits offers many benefits:
- Environmentally friendly – Made of recycled wood fibers and newsprint, cellulose is the green insulation option.
- Safety – Cellulose insulation is treated with borate to prevent the start or slow the growth of fire, with the added bonus of deterring insects.
- Comfort – Cellulose is an excellent insulation material that will significantly reduce heat loss to keep your home warm in the winter.
- Energy savings – Insulation helps stop energy loss, which can save you money every month on your energy bills.
Take Advantage of Free Insulation Upgrades for National Grid Customers
Wondering how much it costs to insulate your attic? With the National Grid Total Home Comfort program, it could be free! There are no income restrictions for the National Grid insulation program, making it easy to qualify for rebates.
To be eligible for National Grid insulation rebates, you must:
- Be a current National Grid residential gas customer
- Live in National Grid’s Metro NYC and Long Island gas service area
- Live in a one to four-family house
- Work with an approved National Grid Partner like NYS Energy Audits
Your Local Long Island and Queens NY Insulation Partner
For more than a dozen years NYS Energy Audits has worked with area homeowners to improve home comfort, lower energy bills, and increase home values. Our award winning team’s focus is on making your home performance upgrades a pleasant experience. This is why we don’t hire subcontractors but do the work with our own highly trained team. As certified partners with utility rebates and other incentive programs, you can be sure you’ll access all the benefits to insulate your house for winter.
