Air Infiltration

The outside of a home’s living space is called the “building envelope”. According to the Department of Energy, up to 40% of a home’s energy loss is due to air infiltration through the building envelope. The building envelope is a system of components designed to be the barrier that protects you from the uncontrolled movement of heat, air and moisture. The same air that is infiltrating your home brings in outdoor pollutants such as dust, dirt, pollen, and mold.

How Spray Foam Works

All structures, including your home, have air gaps and crevices that allow air to infiltrate the building. When air from the outside replaces the air in your home, it is called a “natural air change”. Many homes can have more than 3 natural air changes per hour. This means the conditioned air inside your home could leak out and be replaced by outside air up to 70 times a day, requiring you to heat or cool that outside air that continues to infiltrate your home. Demilec’s spray foam is much more than a great insulation. It expands up to 120 times to fill every crack, gap and void to create an air barrier, dramatically reducing the energy consumption of your home.

Don’t Settle for R-Value Alone

The comfort level and performance of your home can’t be measured by the R-value of the insulation alone. True comfort and performance is also measured by your home’s ability to control air movement, moisture, air quality, sound and energy efficiency. Retrofitting your home with Demilec’s spray foam gives you a cost effective and lightweight air barrier and insulation, which helps control air movement and heat flow all in one step. Our spray foam products provide reliable R-values under the most extreme conditions, protecting your home from heat loss and gain.

Sound Attenuation

Most outdoor noise pollution is carried into your home through air leaks in the building envelope. Spray foam insulation seals these leaks, preventing the sound from traveling through them. The millions of open cells in semi-rigid spray foam insulation work to absorb sound waves at varying frequencies, making it possible to design cost effective walls and ceilings with high sound transmission class (STC) ratings.

Attic Temperature

Have you noticed that no matter how many vents you put in your attic, it still gets much hotter than the outside temperature? Radiant heat loads can raise attic temperatures to over 150°F. Even when there is no mechanical system in your attic, these extreme temperatures are constantly working like a heating pad or ice pack sitting on the ceiling of your home.

Heat will always rise, regardless of the season. “Stack effect” is where hot air naturally rises up and escapes through light fixtures, power outlets, molding and other areas. The air that rises creates a negative pressure in the building that draws in unconditioned air at the base of the structure. Spray foam from Demilec creates an air barrier that is essentially like putting the lid on a foam cooler. To create this air barrier, a Demilec Authorized Contractor can spray our products directly to your attic floor, or create an unvented attic assembly. If you were going to the lake and taking beverages you wanted to keep hot or cold, would you put them in a cooler or wrap them in fiberglass?

Putting this “lid” on your home is more important than you may know. Anytime your duct work or mechanical systems are in the attic, the attic temperature heats or cools the duct work and forces the system to work harder to overcome the extreme temperatures. One of the most popular and beneficial upgrades is having a “conditioned” or “unvented” attic assembly. It has proven to be an extremely effective energy saving method compared to the conventional attic assembly. The building codes have recognized this method of insulating the underside of the roof since 2004 and identify the specific requirements for this application. The unvented attic assembly seals off the attic and turns the area into semi-conditioned space. When this process is done correctly, the radiant heat load will be drastically reduced, keeping the attic temperature within 5 – 10 degrees of the living area and moving the mechanical system into a conditioned space.