Weekend Warrior
Using EPS to Insulate an Unfinished Basement
Depending on the state of your unfinished basement, it may look like a confusing mashup of holiday decorations and keepsakes or a giant slab of concrete with exposed studs. Whether you’re planning to continue using this space for storage or are preparing to create a comfortable living space, adding Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) insulation to your basement is a smart project to take on this weekend. By installing EPS insulation to your unfinished basement, you can quickly add multiple energy and cost-saving benefits to your home.
Let’s take a look at two key reasons why you should add insulation in your basement: consistency and savings. First, insulation helps keep your home at a consistently comfortable temperature. By keeping your home’s temperature stable, the cold and hot cycles that come with the seasons are more easily kept under control. This, in turn, helps keep your home more comfortable year-round. Second, basement insulation contributes to creating a more energy-efficient home by minimizing thermal bridging (heat flow) between the surrounding environment and the basement walls. When your home is properly insulated, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that heating and cooling savings could add up to 20 percent. To put that in perspective, the typical U.S. home has a heating/cooling bill that accounts for almost half of its energy costs each month – meaning you could save 10 percent of your overall energy bill.
While insulation can be applied to the inside or outside of a basement wall, for existing homes it is typically much easier to install it on the inside wall. This avoids having to move dirt away from the foundation and back-fill it once the insulation is in place. Additionally, if you live in an area with termites, carpenter ants or other insects, it’s important to consider how insect protection affects the choice and placement of insulation in your home. Insulfoam’s R-Tech® Insulation panels are an ideal solution in these environments as they are impervious to insects and mold growth (unlike other insulation choices like fiberglass batt, which offers insects a warm environment to create homes and channels within insulation sections).
Getting Started
Now that you are ready to become a “Weekend Warrior” and insulate your unfinished basement, watch these easy-to-follow videos to learn how to insulate between furring strips and on bare foundation walls:
Installing R-Tech Insulation Between Furring Strips
