If you live in Arizona, you’ve likely seen advertisements promising lower bills and improved comfort if you install extra insulation in your attic. But will additional insulation really keep your Phoenix home cool? According to Jeff Kramer of Reflect Green, more insulation isn’t the answer to your home cooling challenges. “Simply installing extra insulation in Phoenix, one of the hottest cities in the U.S.,” says Kramer, “isn’t going to make your home dramatically cooler.” Instead, Kramer recommends a radiant barrier system to help keep temperatures down inside your home and reduce your energy costs.
Why Insulation Isn’t the Answer
“If someone asks me whether increasing insulation in his attic will make a big difference in his electric bill,” Kramer says, “unfortunately, the answer is ‘no.’” Traditional (fiberglass or “mineral”) insulation, he says, has been in use in its current form for nearly a century. While it does serve a purpose, traditional insulation is limited in its ability to keep an interior space cool.
The problem with insulation in attics in Arizona, Kramer says, is that insulation is made to slow heat down, but still allows heat to pass through. When bombarded by Arizona’s intense heat, he says, it reaches its maximum heat capacity fairly quickly and begins allowing heat into the attic and the interior of the home. To illustrate this point, Kramer cites a recent study on the effects of added insulation on energy costs in Arizona homes. “What they found out,” he says, “is that putting more insulation in your attic only saves the average Phoenix homeowner about $5 each year. It’s just not a cost-effective solution.”
Radiant Barrier - The Best Alternative
Kramer says that when he and his partner founded Reflect Green and began looking for the best insulation products, it quickly became clear that they were not interested in taking the traditional route. Instead, Kramer says, they discovered that radiant barrier systems could offer extremely impressive results. “When you look at the test results,” he says, “it’s clear which is the best product - there’s really no comparison.”
Radiant barrier systems, says Kramer, operate on a surprisingly simple principle. Rather than absorbing heat like a sponge (as traditional insulation does), a radiant barrier actually gathers heat and reflects it back away from the home. “To understand how a radiant barrier works,” Kramer says, “consider the reflective shield you might use in your car’s windshield to keep it cool in the summer.” Made of a special, highly reflective kind of aluminum and installed in a home’s attic, a radiant barrier, he explains, can reflect up to 97% of the radiant heat it receives through the attic roof.
“At Reflect Green,” Kramer says, “we’re confident that radiant barrier systems offer the best protection against Arizona’s heat.” Whereas traditional insulation, no matter how much you install, only slows heat down as it enters your living space, radiant barrier systems prevent the heat from entering at all. When a radiant barrier system is properly installed in your home, Kramer says, your energy savings could be between 20 and 30 percent. “It’s the best way to bring your energy costs down,” he says. “It’s just that simple.”
