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You don’t need any specialized tools except breathing masks and skin protection. Let’s break this down a little further by looking at some of the most popular types of insulation. The ability of a material to resist heat flow is measured by its R-value. The higher the R-value, the more effective it will be at insulating your home.
Hence, to resolve this problem, many mobile home owners take matters into their own hands and attempt to re-insulate their homes. This can lead to a bevy of other issues, especially if you’re performing the insulation installation by yourself. While more insulation can't hurt as sohappy suggests, I am in a cold climate during winter. Since 99% of my heating is done with a pellet stove and not the furnace, I have to have ambient heat able to move through the floor to the pipes.
Using Fiberglass to Insulate Under a Mobile Home
For instance, since reducing weight is a priority, wall studs in mobile homes are frequently smaller than those in traditional homes. This makes it much simpler for heat to pass through the walls and perhaps more challenging to install new insulation or upgrade old insulation. Structure and insulation are the most important aspects of the home. Installing new insulation will be a great investment though – you’ll definitely save on your heating and cooling. You can install the lower cost pink insulation to save a little money (and it’s a bit easier to install so you can save on labor, too).
It’s really kind of ridiculous how different opinions are about insulated skirting of all things! I’m gonna side with the numbers – the NERL did tests and it showed insulated skirting was the 5th best energy saving improvement or upgrade. My 1986 mobile home has 6” walls and 6” fiberglass unfaced insulation.
The Rewards of Installing Insulation in a Mobile Home
While the mobile home’s decor may not have made it to the cover of Home and Garden, auntie had lovingly updated it over the years. She had heroically painted the walls herself with a three-inch paintbrush in bright yellow and aqua. Extruded polystyrene is ideal for basements and slabs and makes an ideal choice for insulating under a mobile home if the added cost isn’t an issue. You’ll pay more for extruded polystyrene but you’ll get better energy efficiency. There’s no doubt about it, installing insulation in a mobile home is the absolute best improvement you can do for your home, especially if your home is older.
The insulation rating is in “U” values, and the lower the U-value the higher the insulation level. When professionally installed, all materials, labor and post-site cleanup should be included, along with sealing any holes or openings created to install the insulation. Insulation acts to change the conductive property of materials, which is how warm air moves through them. Less hot air will escape through your walls in the winter if you have the proper conduction protection. Fiberglass board insulation is constructed of layers of fiberglass placed one over the other, much like a fiberglass insulation blanket.
How to insulate under a mobile home
Typical recommendations for exterior walls are R-13 to R-23, while R-30, R-38 and R-49 are common for ceilings and attic spaces. See the Department of Energy’s ranges for recommended levels of insulation below. Fire is probably the biggest disadvantage of foam board insulation and meeting your local fire protection codes may be bothersome.
The critters have essentially torn down any insulation that was there. I plan on buying a pair of the 16x80 belly paper rolls from the site; the insulation would come from the local hardware or Lowes/HD. I will fix the critter access first and re-plumb with PEX before underbelly replacement. Depending on where you live and the part of your home you’re insulating (walls, crawlspace, attic, etc.), you’ll need a different R-Value.
However, you will typically find R-11 or R-13 minimum standard in the floor, R-19 with 2″ x 6″ side walls, and R-22 in the roof. I’m already using rigid insulation between the floor joists. To secure the full-size sheet to the bottom of the home Bryan used 3″ screws with a 1″ wide fender washer. Since the home was built on 2 steel beams at an 8′ interval he used the lip of the steel beams to act as a shelf for the ends of the foam board. The wood joists are a bit shorter than the steel beams so this method worked well.
I am working to fix this hopefully before the cold weather arrives in and around the November/December time frame. It’s best that you use insulation or foam around the pipes, not newspaper since there’s really no insulation qualities and it isn’t fireproof . It is common to have to add insulation after plumbing upgrades or changes so that makes sense – just not the newspaper. You can get a roll of insulation for less than $30 and use whatever is left between the joists under your home. When they added the new pipe, they had to cut through the black plastic stapled to the bottom of the home.
First, you need to decide which kind of material is right for your home. Second, you’ll need to chose the kind of installation that is best for each area of your home. An insulation mat wrapped around your water heater should do the trick. Ducts can be sealed with tape or weather stripping and covered in mats or boards. You can find insulating sleeves that simply wrap around plumbing and can be tied down with duct tape or cable ties. There are particular difficulties with mobile houses and trailers.
These are typically much easier to quickly identify and resolve but can do similar damage to the insulation if not caught in time. It’s not just about saving money when replacing the insulation in mobile homes. There is unquestionably something to be said for more comfort. Better insulation makes it simpler to maintain a comfortable indoor temperature year-round.
The roof is the most important part of the home when it comes to insulation. Not only is it a large area affected by the outside temperature, but as hot air rises, a roof that is not well insulated will simply let it escape into the atmosphere. Good old caulk is a must-have for any serious mobile home owner. It’s handy to use in almost any DIY project you can think of. It’s also perfect for sealing the small cracks and holes that tend to develop in mobile homes over time.
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