Insulate Your Home

Summary: Insulate or air-seal your home for a greener footprint and lower bills.

Description

Many of us live in underinsulated, leaky homes. There's a lot of air sweeping into and through our homes, making them uncomfortable and expensive to heat and cool! It’s easy to feel the pinch of this, especially in the winter.

That struggle isn’t necessary: addressing this will most likely cost you nothing and save you a lot!

How can you tell if your walls are properly insulated and air sealed?  Start with a no-cost  home energy assessment. For perspective, an older home probably has at least 250% more air infiltration than a new construction home today.

Take advantage of available reimbursements. Mass Save, a state sponsored energy efficiency program, will reimburse all customers for any needed insulation at 75%.  There are also federal tax credits for 30% off the costs of heat pumps, heat pump hot water heaters, insulation, solar, windows, and more. These expire on December 31st, 2025. You can find details and added information from the United States Department of Energy and the IRS.

MassSave subsidizes approved air sealing work. You can find out more about their insulation and air sealing programs here. It also offers a 0% loan program for financing HVAC and energy efficiency measures. The energy efficiency professional conducting your assessment can provide you with more details.

Want to go deeper? There are many more energy efficient improvements you can make beyond insulation and air-sealing, and Mass Save has additional incentives for renovations and additions, as well as  0% loans for greater energy efficiency measures. Air sealing and insulation is generally a necessary first step for other carbon reducing measures.

Deep Dive

Consider some other efficiency improvements to your home:

1. Replace upper level recessed light fixtures with insulated ones.
2. Install a draft stopper for your chimney
3. Weather strip or replace drafty windows
4. Seal leaky ducts
5. Change to electric induction cooking
6. Get a smart thermostat to monitor your heating and cooling
7. Carry out advanced air sealing through blower door directed air sealing
8. Add heat recovery ventilation to improve air quality and preheat fresh air entering your home 

Steps to Take

1. Don't wait to sign up for a no-cost home energy assessment. Without this assessment, you can't get the insulation incentive. 
2. Following the home energy assessment, take the recommended action and take advantage of the Mass Save subsidized air sealing and insulation installation. This is often a necessary first step to making other changes possible.
3. Let us know how it went! Write a testimonial.