Insulated Siding – Good for the Environment?

It’s a hidden past-time that a lot of people do: driving by homes and looking at what other people do with/to their homes and copying what we like the best. Sometimes you have an added bonus if it’s at night and you can sneak a peek into someone else’s home, their little world, and compare it to yours. But beyond what’s on the surface of a home, how energy efficient and environmentally friendly is their home compared to yours? How green is that dream home?

One way that a home can be beautified and be the envy of the neighborhood is through new siding. But not just any siding: insulated siding. This home siding includes rigid foam insulation, behind the exterior surface of the siding panel. This fills the gap between the siding surface and your home’s outside walls delivering an R-value in the range of 2.2 – 5.1, which is much higher than other common exterior building materials including fiber cement, brick and wood.

The insulation in your walls, attic and basement or crawl space do protect your home from the outside climate, but the temperatures outside can still get through to the inside air at times. Insulated siding provides an added barrier to the weather outside. Look at it this way: the standard insulation is placed in between the wall studs, leaving air to get between the studs and insulation. Since the wall studs pick up and conduct heat, allowing energy to leak through the walls. The wall studs can make up to 25 percent of the walls surface, which allows a 25 percent increase of your utility bill.

Putting insulated siding on your home’s walls puts a wrap of insulation around your walls to keep air from moving through the walls, saving as much as 20 percent on your heating and cooling bill.

Along with significant energy savings, insulated siding is also:

• More durable than other siding: With the foam backing it can withstand the stray baseball, hail or random debris flying into it. With the foam backing it reinforces the outer layer making it more durable to sudden blows.
• Low maintenance: no need to paint every year. Once in place it should be beautiful and durable for several years.
• The insulation backing is breathable, so you don’t have to worry about any moisture build-up which can lead to rotting wood, mold and mildew.
• Withstands high winds, up to 215 MPH.
• Environmentally friendly: With the added energy savings and low or no maintenance costs, you are using less energy and materials to keep your home looking good.

To look at the possibility of installing insulated siding on your home, contact a qualified contractor that specializes in this product line.