Insulation: A Quick Guide to Types and Best Practices

Posted by Brett McCutcheon on Apr 11, 2016 1:35:26 PM
Brett McCutcheon
pneumatic toolsA little humor to kick off your week… A friend of mine purchased an old home in northern New York State from two elderly sisters. Winter was fast approaching, and they were concerned about the home's lack of insulation. "If they could live here all those years, so can we!" they confidently declared. One December night the temperature plunged to below zero, and they woke up to find interior walls covered with frost. They called the sisters to ask how they had kept the house warm. After a rather brief conversation, they discovered “For the past 30 years we've gone to Florida for the winter!" All joking aside, for those living in older homes this joke isn’t too far off the mark.
It’s almost a guarantee that most older homes lack adequate insulation. Unfortunately, even with newer construction, there’s no promise that it will be insulated to its fullest potential.

Homeowners looking to reduce their energy bills and buffer sound can turn to insulation as a solution. However, deciding which of the energy-saving, cost-effective insulating options is appropriate for a house depends on several factors.

To choose the best option for insulation, you need to determine:
  1. Where the insulation is needed;
  2. The type of insulation you currently have (if applicable);
  3. The R-value (maximum thermal performance) and the thickness/depth in inches of the insulation you have.

For a quick, but comprehensive overview of the most widely available insulation materials, how they are installed, where they're typically installed, and their advantages, you’ll want to check out the chart on energy.gov.

If fiberglass or other insulating strips are your choice, then you won’t need too many supplies, just a few basic necessities like a staple gun, utility knife and protective safety gear.

A quality stapler can make any job more efficient. We are proud of the construction fasteners and pneumatic tools manufactured by The BECK Fastener Group®, a company with over 100 years of experience in providing products of consistent quality and innovation that are proven to make just about any job easier. Our products include more than just air-driven tools. We also produce fine wire-, medium wire- and heavy-duty staplers, as well as manually operated staplers and tackers and a variety of specialty tools.

Download the product leaflet

Topics: Insulation

CURRENT PROMOTIONS

10% Discount on Your First SCRAIL® Fastener Order

SCRAIL®, Fast like a Nail, Strong like a Screw, are incredibly versatile collated fasteners that can be driven with a pneumatic nailer at a rate twice as fast as collated screws and eight times faster than bulk screws. You can rely upon SCRAIL® fasteners to hold strong, without callbacks to fix a squeak or a nail pop.

Give SCRAIL® a try, and enjoy 10% off your first order.

  • Use SCRAIL® almost anywhere ordinary screws are used
  • Save time and labor costs 
  • Twice as fast as collated screws, eight times faster than bulk screws
  • Easily adjusted, quickly removed
  • Dramatically increased holding power vs. nails
  • Making projects easier since 1998

Subscribe to this blog

Recent Posts

Posts by Topic

see all