Adding roofing insulation is easy. Once you’ve decided on whether you to use a batt style insulation or a “blown-in” type, it’s simply a matter of opening your man-hole cover, climb in and start spreading it out. Read more about installing roofing insulation here. One handy tip? Be sure to only stand on the ceiling joists – you don’t want to put your feet through your plasterboard.

The most popular home insulation solution on the market today is glass wool insulation, commonly known as pink batts. There is also glass wool insulation blankets, which either come covered with a layer of foil or without. Polyester insulation is the second most popular type of insulation on the market. Blow in insulation is generally fire-retardant paper particles.   

Glass wool is the cheapest type of insulation, followed by paper, and polyester is the most expensive.

Insulating the walls of an existing home is a little trickier. An increasingly popular method is to pump insulation into the cavities between the plasterboard and the external cladding with hoses and high pressured pumps. You can choose to use either rockwool or foam.

There are a couple of methods of installing wall insulation:

• For brick homes, the roof tiles are removed, and the insulation is pumped in from above.  

• For clad homes, small openings are drilled into the plasterboard or cladding and the insulation is pumped in, before the holes are filled in, ready for re-painting.

If you’re looking to retrofit your home with insulation and take control of your energy bills, you’ll need to talk with an expert. You can find a local insulation installer here.