There’s no getting around the fact that winter temperatures in Illinois can be challenging to deal with. For homeowners in and around Peoria, escaping to a warm indoor environment when the snow starts flying isn’t always an option. Sound familiar?
Maybe your heating system worked overtime last winter, or you caught yourself noticing drafts throughout different parts of the home. Either way, issues such as this don’t bode well for the warm summer that’s on its way.
Why does a cold home during the winter equal a hot home during the summer months? It all comes down to the home envelope.
What is the Home Envelope?
Also referred to as the building envelope, the home envelope is essentially the barrier that separates conditioned and unconditioned spaces throughout and around your house. Take, for example, a wall that separates your living room from an adjacent garage, the latter of which isn’t heated or cooled and may contain a number of harmful chemicals like paints, fertilizers etc. If air is allowed to flow between the two spaces, your well-conditioned living room will inevitably suffer from heat loss in the winter, cool air loss in the summer and indoor air quality issues no matter what time of year it is.
So, how can you beef-up your home envelope and put these problems to rest for good? The solution can often be found in air sealing and insulation.
Air Sealing & Insulation Are A Winning Combination
There are plenty of reasons why the home envelope can suffer, but more often than not, it comes down to both a lack of insulation and cracks and gaps that are scattered throughout your house—most of which are nearly impossible to notice unless drafts are occurring. As you might expect, cracks and gaps in the building envelope allow unwanted airflow to happen, sucking the cool air out of your home in the summer and causing your air conditioner to work overtime. Air sealing is like a windbreaker around the building envelope, trapping conditioned air inside where it belongs while keeping outside air from entering the home.
If air sealing is like a windbreaker, insulation is like a koozie that you put around your drink in the summer to keep it cool. It allows your AC to operate at peak capacity without constantly clicking on and off, thus saving you money by boosting energy efficiency and creating a more comfortable indoor environment at the same time.