Wall Insulation
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Works Summer AND Winter!!!!
Most homes built before 1972 do not have insulation in the walls. Also, few homeowners are even aware that their home has empty walls. During the winter, insulated walls will serve to hold the heat in and prevent warmth from escaping. Once insulated, the walls won't feel ice-cold and condensation / mold is significantly less likely to form.
Wall insulation makes a huge difference in the comfort of a home.

During the summer, wall insulation will reduce the amount of heat coming in through the walls and help contain the coolness within your home. The South & West facing walls are often referred to as the "hot walls", the sun tends to bake on them causing the walls to be hot. These heated walls often tend to radiate heat into the home even well after sundown. Once insulated, the heat entering the home is dramatically reduced.

How it's done...
Wall insulation is usually done when the home is about to be re-painted, re-stuccoed or texture-coated. The reason for this is due to the many holes we must drill on the face of the walls. Wall insulation can not be injected through the attic area nor from underneath the home. We have to drill holes on the face of the wall, from either the exterior or interior.

The process involves drilling 2" holes in each bay, above and below the fire-block. This generally means one hole about 3-feet up the wall and another hole about 6-foot up the wall. These sets of holes are made every 16" across the wall to access each bay. The walls are then injected with insulation until full. The holes are then plugged with a Styrofoam plug, stucco patching is applied and then each patch is floated to match a standard rough stucco texture.

We can drill from either the interior OR exterior of the home. When working from the interior it is best when the home is vacant, being remodeled or prepared for exposure to dust. Because wall insulation can be a bit dusty, most of our work is done from the exterior.

We provide an exterior stucco patch as part of our process (some companies do not). The texture we can best match is a standard rough finish, typical of most homes. Textures such as a raised Spanish-lace, texture coating or skip-trowel are not finishes we can match very well. We have contractors we refer to deal with this. Our patch typical dries in a day and can be primed & painted soon after. Some homeowners repaint the entire home, others just color-match the paint and paint each patch.

Interior patching involves using a spackle or joint compound. The patching generally looks great when finished, but will tend to shrink and crack as it dries. We only provide a primary application of patching material, additional patching (not provided by us) will be required. The final process of patching involves some sanding, which can also be quite dusty.

We can insulate the walls of a one-story home from either the interior or exterior, but when it comes to two-story homes, we generally need to drill the second-story walls from the interior. The process of drilling holes in stucco involves the use of a large power drill, it's rather impractical to work from a conventional ladder. Because of this, we will ask to drill the second-story from the interior. Sometimes we can work on balconies, roofs or patio covers. We deal with each situation on an individual basis.

The attic is by far the most important area of your home to be insulated. Often people are insulating their walls exclusively because they are re-painting or re-finishing the exterior of their homes. We always suggest they also check their attic to make sure it's adequately insulated. Quite frequently people assure us they have a full 12-inches of material in their attic, but when we arrive at the job they have us check the attic and we discover they have 2-3-inches. The reason we mention this is because wall insulation will help, but if the attic is not done well, your home will still lose heat in the winter and gain heat in the summer, a well insulated attic is critical.

Not all wall insulation processes are the same!
We drill 2-inch holes for injecting our insulation. Most other companies are still drilling 1-11/2-inch holes. The larger hole means a more expensive drill-bit and certainly more time drilling and patching, so why do we do it? Well, just like the valves inside your car's engine, a large opening means we can inject insulation at a thicker rate and with better coverage. This typiclay means that we can have 30-40% more insulation in a given space increasing your home's comfort and reducing your utility costs.

Wall insulation is something we charge based on a price per square foot. We deduct for windows, doors, fireplaces and other areas that can not be done. Keeping it simple, we only charge for the area we're insulating. We drill, fill, plug and patch the holes. Some people just insulate particular walls, perhaps the south and west "hot" walls of the house, while most people insulate the entire exterior perimeter of their home.

When you insulate the exterior walls of your home it's generally for thermal purposes, to keep the house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. You are creating a thermal barrier between the inside of your home and the environment outside your home.

When you insulate walls that are between bedrooms or other rooms of your home, it's primarily for soundproofing (the reduction of noise between rooms). Because an entire home is either heated or cooled, it doesn't make sense to insulate interior walls for thermal purposes.

The Common Wall
The common wall is the wall between your garage and your home. Sometimes this wall, in older homes, is open-framing and can not be insulated using our injection process, but most the time the common wall has drywall, plaster or some material on it. Most homeowners will insulate this wall. It helps contain heat within the home during the winter and also serves to block the heat that develops in the garage from entering the home in the summer. Arguably, the common wall may not make as much a difference as the other exterior walls in your home. Additionally, sometimes there is cabinetry or other obstructions in the way, each homeowner just has to decide for themselves if they want this section of wall done.


Another problem we sometimes run into is when walls already have existing insulation in them. No matter how thin the existing insulation, we cannot inject more insulation into a wall that already has some existing insulation in it. We generally need at least 3" of depth to inject our insulation. Even if your existing insulation is light & fluffy, we cannot inject more.