Insu­la­tion for Hawaii Home

The gov­ern­ment of Hawaii has intro­duced var­i­ous new pro­grams for encour­ag­ing the Hawaii cit­i­zens towards tak­ing a step for mak­ing their homes more green and energy effi­cient. The most impor­tant part of any energy effi­cient home is insu­la­tion but ade­quate insu­la­tion is also not suit­able. It is harm­ful to add insu­la­tion to a pre-insulated house.

A point of dimin­ish­ing is reached on addi­tional insu­la­tion to a pre-insulated house. Before reach­ing this point insu­la­tion helps in reduc­ing the cost of energy by 1 dol­lar for a def­i­nite time period.

Once this point is reached it would cost you 1 dol­lar more for the energy cost. Hence it is not advis­able to insu­late the house once the point of dimin­ish­ing is reached.

The Inter­na­tional Res­i­den­tial Code (IRC) 2009 is the main place for look­ing the point of dimin­ish­ing returns. It con­sists of all the min­i­mum require­ments needed for insu­la­tion of any house in Hawaii. These require­ments are quite close to dimin­ish­ing returns but not at the verge of it. For exam­ple, if the min­i­mum IRC in warmer con­di­tions is R-30 than increas­ing it to R-35 or R-38 would reach to the dimin­ish­ing point. This might not be suit­able for energy efficiency.

They have divided the IRC cli­mate zones in to three dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories. First these zones were divided into eight zones but as some zones have sim­i­lar con­di­tions they were then sim­pli­fied together. You may even con­tact the local build­ing offi­cials to get the infor­ma­tion about insu­la­tion requirements.

In Hawaii the best suit­able type of insu­la­tion for res­i­dents is the Spray foam insu­la­tion. Spray foam insu­la­tion helps stop­ping all the air and mois­ture infil­tra­tions in the house. It even makes home more com­fort­able and saves a lot on energy costs. It strength­ens the struc­ture of the build­ing and makes it strong than before.

Once the insu­la­tion is installed it is per­ma­nent. Spray foam insu­la­tion keeps the dust and pollen out of the house. It elim­i­nates all the ice dam­ag­ing and improves the qual­ity of air. Over and above it meets all the build­ing codes of Hawaii.

The con­crete block type of insu­la­tion is also suit­able for Hawaii homes. The mate­ri­als used in this insu­la­tion are poly­styrene, poly­iso­cya­nu­rate or poly­iso and polyurethane.

This insu­la­tion is usu­ally applic­a­ble on unfin­ished walls includ­ing the foun­da­tion walls as well as for new con­struc­tions and most prob­a­bly in major ren­o­va­tions. This insu­la­tion requires minor masonry skills. This type of con­crete has 10 times more insu­lat­ing value than ordi­nary cement concrete.

The loose fill insu­la­tion rec­om­mended for enclosed exist­ing wall or new open wall cav­i­ties and unfin­ished attic walls where it is hard to reach is made up of cel­lu­lose, fiber­glass and min­eral wool. Mostly it is blown at required place with the help of highly mod­ern equip­ments. This is very good for insu­lat­ing the fin­ished exist­ing areas of the house as well as around the obstacles.

For unfin­ished walls, ceil­ings and the floor the reflec­tive sys­tems insu­la­tion is used in Hawaii. This insulation

is made using foil faced Kraft paper, plas­tic film, poly­eth­yl­ene bub­bles and card­board. The instal­la­tion of this is also very sim­ple using frame studs joint between the beams.

This insu­la­tion can be installed by you man­u­ally. In case of irreg­u­lar fram­ing or pres­ence of obsta­cles bub­ble foam can be applied. It is effec­tive in pre­vent­ing down­ward flow of heat what so ever it even­tu­ally depends on spacing.

If you are hav­ing prob­lems of high tem­per­a­ture than rigid fibrous or fiber insu­la­tion is best suit­able for you. Fiber­glass min­eral rock or slag wool is employed in prepa­ra­tion of this kind of insulation.

 

• Tags: Hawaii Insulation, Hawaii insulation company, home depot Hawaii, insulation Hawaii
  
• Published by admin in: Hawaii


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