Roof Insulation

Your Essential Guide to Roof Insulation

When it comes to insulation, your home’s roof is too often ignored. Roof insulation is the best way to reduce heat loss from your home. Having a well-insulated roof won’t only save you money on cooling and heating costs, but it also provides a more comfortable and efficient living environment.

The primary purpose of roof insulation board is to create a thermal barrier on the top level of the building – thus reducing the amount of heat loss in winter as well as decreasing the amount of heat entering your house in summer. You will need a different approach if you are dealing with a flat roof or a pitched roof, and then take a few more decisions such as decide if you are going to insulate at rafter level for a cold or warm roof.

Advantages of Roof Insulation

You probably didn’t know that your home’s roof is responsible for about 30-40% of heat loss. So, when you insulate the roof of your house, it is one of the best investments you can do to improve your home efficiency. So what is the best choice when you opt to insulate the roof? Well, there are two solutions such as cold and warm insulation. Before telling you about the benefits of roof insulation and roof insulation boards, let’s see the differences between cold and warm insulation for your pitched roof.

If you are looking for the cheapest option, then you should go for the cold roof insulation. This type of insulation is usually placed over and between the wooden joists. Also, you can install it above your home’ ceiling (top floor). It is an easy-to-do job just like any DIY project. However, it is vital to know that cold insulation only stops the amount of heat escaping through the roof – and the loft space will remain uninsulated and get even colder in winter.

Warm roof insulation is placed directly under the roof. Just like any other type of insulation, warm insulation has the ability to reduce the amount of heat loss from your home. This way, your house won’t be excessively cold in winter or hot in summer.

Quick Tip: You need to make sure there is enough ventilation in order to avoid condensation.

Now, let’s talk about the most important advantages of roofing insulation. As a homeowner, it is important that you get acquainted with these benefits.

Long-Term Prevention

Let’s say we have a “big freeze” next winter (a not so rare occurrence anymore). You could wake up to 5 inches of snow covering your house. And there lies the devil. When your roof is not insulated properly, you could enter a catch 22 situation where the increase in heat escaping from your roof will accelerate the melting of the snow on your house’s roof, thus causing risks of ice dams. Ice dams, moisture, and condensation can steadily cause damage to your home. Therefore, in order to prevent those damage, we generally always recommend you to insulate your roof in addition to the other areas of the house.

Energy and Cost Savings of Roof Insulation

With proper roofing insulation, you will definitely save a significant amount of money and energy. Roof insulation helps you keep the cold or heat in when you need to. There are various survey reports available online and all of them showing slightly different statistics. However, on average, homeowners have reported that their roof insulation savings are between 20% to 25%.

Environmental Sustainability

Roof insulation can be the most vital energy-saving project you can take on. When you implement such a project in your home, not only it is beneficial for you in terms of energy consumption and cost-saving but also for eco-friendliness reasons. You actually play your role in reducing the number of pollutants from the environment.

What is the best material for roof insulation?

Basically, there are two different types of roofing insulation materials. They are

 1). Reflective Insulation (Multifoil insulation) and

 2). Bulk Insulation. 

The latter type is in the form of sprayed foam, blown-in cellulose, rigid boards, and blankets.

In the UK, most houses, offices, and other commercial buildings unite both types to create a complete insulation system. Nonetheless, in both colder and hotter conditions, reflective insulation material for roof is quite enough to control undesirable gain or loss of temperature as well as penetration of moisture.

In addition, blanket insulation is considered the best choice for roof insulation if you have tiled, flat ceiling, and/or pitched metal roof. The range of blankets or batts, which might be suitable for roof insulation includes rock wool, glass wool, natural wool, and polyester.

How much does roof insulation cost?

There are various ways to insulate your roof – simply put, it depends on the condition of your home, the type of roof you have, and the material you want to use. In order to properly budget the cost of roof insulation, we will go through a few essentials that need to be kept in mind in order to avoid costly mistakes.

• Flat Roof Insulation Costs

If you have a flat roof, then cold or warm deck insulation will cost around £35 per square meter, which is similar to the prices of other types of roof insulation. However, you must know that exterior insulation costs more, which is around £80 per square meter.

• Pitched Roof Insulation Costs

If you have a pitched roof, materials commonly used are polystyrene insulation panels that are often back with foils. So, on average, the cost of insulation panels for roof insulation is £25 per square meter. Overall, the estimated cost of roof insulation in your house would be something between £400 to £500.

Quite often this is also an opportunity to replace or add new insulated windows to your roof, especially if you are converting it to a warm loft.

Should you insulate roof rafters?

It is preferable to insulate a cold attic from the outdoors in order to avoid the risks of freezing pipes. If only loft insulation is applied between the joists, your attic will be starved off warm air and will get considerably colder than before during winter. Thus increasing the risk of catastrophic pipe failure.

In conclusion, insulation in the roof rafters allows warmth in the space and insulation between the joists is the best way to keep your living space warm and create a cold loft. Lastly, insulation not only lowers your heating bills but also reduce your house’s carbon footprint – enhancing its energy efficiency and value.

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