Staying Warm on the Inside

Winter’s in full swing in much of the world. While we can’t change the brisk cold air freezing us to our bones, we can change how it affects us in the spaces we live in. One way we can do this is by insulating our homes to keep in the heat from either our heaters or a nice log fire in the chimney.

Image 1: A person installing wall insulation in a home (Image Courtesy of This Old House)

While there’s more than one way to properly insulate a home, it’s important to understand how heat travels so your home is insulated to keep the heat inside during the winter—and also to keep the heat outside during the summer—in a way that keeps your home nice and cozy.

Let’s take a look and see how insulated walls either keep the heat in or out, depending on the time of year it is:

Figure 1: Diagram showing how heat travels through exterior home walls during the winter

Figure 2: Diagram showing how heat travels through the outermost home walls during the summer

Remember, heat always travels from higher temperatures to lower temperatures. This is why a room is usually harder to keep warm in the winter than in the summer and why that same room is harder to keep cool in the summer than it is in the winter. 

While homes will still allow some heat to leave during the winter or enter during the summer, the amount of heat that goes through the walls will depend on the materials used to make both sides of the outermost wall and the insulation material inside the walls. This is why it’s always a good idea to hire either an experienced home builder or home remodeling contractor to have them make the outermost walls your home needs. 

Image 2: Always consult with an experienced home builder or remodeling contractor to get the best outermost walls for your home

If you want to take a deeper dive into this, check out our article How Homes Help Us Beat the Heat to see how engineering can be used to insulate your home.

Let us know how we did—or what you’d like to see next—in the comments below!

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