How To Insulate Upper Floors From Rising Heat

Formulate a game plan to winterize your home from the attic to the basement starting with the upper floors and working downward.

How to insulate upper floors from rising heat.

Seal off those upstairs rooms in the winter to keep the heat from rising and make your utility bills more manageable. Add extra insulation to your roof and attic. This is especially important in the winter months when drafts can make a cold downstairs level feel even colder. Temporary barriers easily removed in the spring keep warm air where you are most active in the home.

Reduce use of lights and appliances avoid generating additional heat upstairs. Unfortunately in old homes this is a common place for heat to escape so it s worth thinking about how insulation can make them more thermally efficient hold heat for longer and protect your home from damp. In the quest to make our homes warmer and more efficient floor insulation is often overlooked. Also adding an attic fan will help cool things down by circulating the air up there and decreasing the amount of hot air reaching your second floor.

4d extend insulation into joist space to reduce air flows. Insulate the attic and windows of your home if the temperature differences are problematic. An excellent move is to insulate the ceiling. You can even air seal your attic to prevent heat from seeping in.

When the floor is above an unheated crawl space install insulation between the floor joists. Original floors represent a precious link with the past their wonderful undulations. Make sure heated or cooled air cannot escape anywhere and consider replacing the windows if they are very old and leaky. Also insulate 4a any portion of the floor in a room that is cantilevered beyond the exterior wall below.

4b slab floors built directly on the ground.