Insulation is easy and difficult to understand. We all know what it is: the stuff that goes in the walls and attics of your home. But we don’t all know what insulation ratings in Provo and Utah mean, and how they affect our home in both value and comfort.
Insulation Ratings In Provo And Utah
Insulation ratings in Provo and around the US are a number that is assigned to materials, reflecting how those materials resist heat flow. Heat flow is similar to heat transfer, a concept most of us learned about in high school physical science class. Some materials transfer heat really well—metal, for instance. That is why we cook in metal pots and pans. They heat evenly and transfer the heat from the heat source to our hamburgers and soups.
Heat flow is similar; materials either make it easy for heat to get through them or they make it hard. Kind of like a football defensive line. Some materials are made of substances that don’t transfer heat well, and they also have air pockets that slow down heat, so that—piece by piece—the material resists letting heat through. Others aren’t so good at it and heat gets through quickly.
That is how insulation works, and that is where insulation ratings in Provo become meaningful.
Insulation ratings are R-values. Each city in Utah has a building code that dictates a minimum of how much insulation a home has to have. For example, Provo’s building code requires an R38 in attics, but because Park City has so many more cold days, the building code there requires an R48-60 in attics.
When you meet with your builder, you need to ask not just whether you are getting the minimum amount of insulation needed, but what kind of insulation it is, how it holds up over years of sitting in your attic or walls, whether the R value holds, and whether—really—you should have a little more than the minimum the code requires.
Insulation ratings in Provo don’t always account for extra wind coming off the lake or out of a canyon, or more sun because of the direction your house faces. Talk to your insulator. Make sure you get the right amount of the right kind of insulation for you.
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