LESLIE: Alright, next up is Regina from Delaware who listens to The Money Pit on WDEL with an insulation question.
How can we help?
REGINA: Thanks for taking my call.
LESLIE: You’re so welcome.
REGINA: My home is an older home. It’s a stone home. And I notice that the outside walls – particularly in the bedrooms – are very, very cold. And I’m wondering, since it’s an old home, if there’s some way that I can stop the cold air from coming in through the walls.
LESLIE: Well, it’s possible after – how old is the home?
REGINA: It’s probably over 50 years old.
LESLIE: I mean it’s possible that after some time, insulation does lose its r value; meaning it compresses and it doesn’t work as well as it should and you might just need some more insulation in the area. And since you probably don’t want to pull off things to reinsulate, you might want to think about blown-in insulation.
REGINA: And how would I do that? Is that something I can do myself?
TOM: No, blown-in insulation is not something you can do yourself. Typically, for a wall, what happens is you drill or the installer will drill a small hole into the wall cavity and that cavity will be filled, then, with the blown-in insulation. And then up in the attic, again, they will sort of blow it out of a hose into different parts of the attic. But the trick is to get it in the right thickness, in the right density, in those areas to do the job that needs to be done. So it is one that’s best to hire a professional installer to tackle. But it is a very convenient way of getting insulation into spaces that are just simply difficult to access in an older house.
REGINA: And is that an expensive project?
TOM: Well, I think insulation is probably one of the most cost-effective projects that you can do because it does lead to so much more in energy savings. So what the cost is itself is going to depend on how difficult the job is and how much work is involved. But generally speaking, it’s going to be a very cost-effective improvement when you make it, Regina. OK?
REGINA: OK, well thank you so much.
LESLIE: Alright, stay warm.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks for calling. Stay warm, absolutely.
REGINA: Thank you.
TOM: Bye-bye.
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