It's always right every Thursday at this time to have our main man on. I mean you can listen to At Home with Gary Sullivan on over two hundred and seventy five stations nationally. I mean, can't go anywhere without people bothering him, Isn't that right?
Gary? Oh gosh, you know it.
Man.
You got a busy day today.
You know, you know you have. I have a very busy day to day. I've got to drive to Blacksburg, Virginia later today. Such pretty country though there. I don't know if you ever spent any time there. That is one of my favorite parts of America.
Yep, yep.
Well, my daughter's in Charlotte, so we go that way a lot. Yeah, and it is beautiful.
The only thing you gotta do, you gotta be careful. And I was explaining to my wife last night about why I'm leaving. When I'm leaving because you know, one thing that I don't like to do, especially the older I get. I don't like driving through the mountains of West Virginia at night.
Yep. Well, a lot of people don't like to do that. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm not alone, all right.
Listen, there are a lot of people out there, Gary, They're gonna their eyes are gonna start rolling in the back of their head when we're gonna start talking about insulation. But the bottom line is you better not ignore it. We're gonna talk about adding insulation. Now, let me ask you before we go any further, because this is where I get to ask dumb questions.
And I love it. Okay, I love it.
Is there a big difference between trying to insulate an older home compared to a relatively newer home.
Oh yeah, there's a real big difference.
I mean, usually when we think, or at least even when I think about insulating a home, I think of a two story house and you got a little cross space up there where you can get into the attic and you insulate the floor of the attic and you're done. And all houses aren't constructed that way. I mean, we've got balloon foundations, we got the old cape CODs, But generally, what we're trying to do is create a buffer between the air and the attic and the air in your home,
which you're paying to condition. So they're not all the same, but the principle is pretty much the same, that's for sure, Okay, Okay, And One of the things been bugging me is, you know, it's been bugging everybody the price of.
Energy.
This year, I've heard more complaints I've ever ever had about the price energy. And the other day when I was doing a show, it dawned on me. It's like, well, we're all whining about it. I wonder what everybody's doing about it.
Well, you know, it's interesting here. I heard a long podcast and I don't listen to many podcasts, but I was struck by this one because you know, everybody wants to do and I don't care what side of the political fenchure on, but clearly during the Biden administration they were not for drilling, fossil fuse, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, so we fell behind compared to where we were during Trump's first term. Now he wants to go back in the adage, right, drill, baby, drill, But it takes time
for them to get that oil and gas true. And so that's the reason, as I understand it, why there's a chance or that's the reason why we have higher energy prices now.
But let's get back to installation.
Yeah, I'm gonna let me add one thing too. Tom because that's the oil side of things. And one of the things that's driving the prices.
On electricity is the demand for electricity with all this AI that it takes these computers so much energy, no kidding, and that's driving it up too. Yeah, I mean yeah, search that and read it.
It's fascinating. I will check it out.
I will check it out for sure.
Okay, if you're looking at insulation, okay, what type are you looking for?
Is that?
And is this pretty much straight across the board?
Well, there's different types of insulation, and people will ask that question a lot. If it's a you know, standard house, there's probably a chance on the attic floor they've got blown in fiberglass insulation, or they got fiberglass batting insulation, or they got cellulose. Some of the newer homes now are starting to use phones. But I tell people all the time, first of all, you or somebody has got to get up in the attic and see what you got.
I think some people, and I've encouraged people to do that, are shocked. They get up in the attic and with their yardstick and they got five inches five inches of insulation.
On the floor.
And in our area Tom, we should probably have about sixteen to eighteen inches, no kidding, yeah, yeah. So if you're using fiberglass for an R value, Department of Energy says about an R forty two and one inch of fiberglass blown in insulation gives you about an R two point five. You know, do the math quickly and you're probably around sixteen eighteen inches and they literally find five
inches of insulation. So I tell people, I don't care what you use in that attic, but if you've got five inches of insulation, if you're do it yourself, fine, do a little research. I really, you know, fiberglass is fine. Cellular settles a little bit more than fiberglass, but it's fine. Putting batting on top of batting, you can do that. You can go perpendicular so that you cover any you know, where it butts up against the joist. Don't use two
vapor barriers. There's probably a vapor barrier down at the bottom top.
So what I'm saying is, if.
You use batting, don't use it where it's got the paper casing over it. Just use the plane batting or blow insulation in there. But you know, if you only got three inches of insulation or five inches of insulation, and you get it up to eighteen inches. The difference you're gonna feel and here your house will be quieter, it'll certainly be warmer, it won't be as drafty. So you know, whatever insulate was something. There's even blue gene insulation, I mean.
Blue Just what the hell is blue jean?
And so ground up blue jeans? What it's ground up denim?
You're kidding me.
No, this is for real, this is for real, ground up blue jeans.
How about that you wondered where all your jeans went?
Oh my god, Well, now I know I have somewhere to go donate them.
There you go, there we go. All right.
Well, now one of the biggest mistakes we can make, because you can make a mistake on this stuff and then all of a sudden it was wasn't worth all the hassle that you went through, Right, Well.
That's true. In fact, you gotta again.
It gets into the era that your house was the First thing you want to do is you want to make sure if you have old electric system. There's something called knob and tube wiring, and it's porcelain insulators with wires, you can't insulate over that that creates heat. So you know, just make sure you don't have any weird looking wiring, not like that wiring we're used to looking at. And if you do, don't insulat or get somebody in there
to check that out. The other thing is around the whole perimeter.
Of the attic.
I think we talked about this a few weeks ago, we were talking about softied ventilation. Was it you that told me you had the softs but you didn't have any ventilation?
I know what't me, but I hed a bunch.
But if you're up in the attic in the daytime and you look around the perimeter, you may see some cardboard shoots that are going up and bringing the air from just below the gutters into the attic. It's called convection. It's cooler temperatures at the lowest area, forcing the hot air out of the ridge vent or those shoe box
vents on the roof. And a lot of times those cardboard shoots aren't there or people aren't paying attention, and they're up there blowing insulation on the attic floor and they cover those vents up.
Which is a huge and no, no wow, because it's not going to really hurt you.
Well, it will hurt you in the winter, but not as much as it's going to hurt you in the summertime. All of a sudden, you put insulation on the floor to save money, but your attic temperature is now one hundred and fifty degrees because you don't have any air in flow right into that attic.
Yea.
So those are the two most you know, most common mistakes. Probably covering up the soft inventing around the perimeter for sure.
Okay, and the last thing I asked you this at the very start, But I want to circle back for a minute, because there are a lot of people around here that are living in older homes. We've got a lot of beautiful older homes or you know, start off homes for a lot of people that have kind of been redone, you know, in recent years in certain areas, a lot of older homes have no insulation in the walls. Does that mean that insulation does it settle over time?
Or what?
We didn't put insulation in walls till about nineteen seventy seven, You're kidding.
No, sir.
When we went into the gas crisis, the old crisis, during Carter, they never put insulation in walls. Now, the Department of Energy in our area says we should have an R nineteen in the walls of our home. Well, kind of too late to a degree. I mean the wall's already made.
But well, when you say that too late, you mean there's nowhere to get in there. It's a brick home and there's just nothing to you. Just can't shoot it in there.
Right, you can shoot it in there, but it's too late to fact to get into an R nineteen because remember our little theory with what an our value is in terms of you know, so there's a space in there. Sometimes it's an inch, sometimes it's an inch and a half.
But there's companies out there that can you know, if it's a vinyl siding, clip to vinyl siding off, if it's wood, drill through the wood, If it's brick, drill into the brick, and they can hit the pockets of the house and under pressure, pump a foam in there. And it's a closed cell phone, so it has a water vapor barrier in there, and they pump it in there, and on the foam per inch of thickness, it's about an R seven.
So well, I mean, it's better nothing, right, better than nothing.
You know what the real big benefit is there. Since it's under pressure, it seals all the gaps. It totally eliminates drafts, and that's what's making young.
Yeah, and that's where you're spending your money, Yes, sir, Okay, Arry, you know you're you're the man, Tracey. I mean you know, I mean you really are. I mean, you get you get two hundred and seventy five stations. You're the kind of guy that the rest of us dream of the coming two one hundred and seventy five stations.
And your boss is coming in the day, so you'd be good. Okay, who is and your wife coming in?
She's already here there you go. Yeah, I mean she's sitting here and she's you know, on her phone and you know, paying attention to you, right, yeah, I mean she's bored with this radio show already. Gary, whenever bored with your show though, Little Era Saturdays and Sundays on fifty five KRC nine to noon.
Gary.
Always great being with you, buddy. Thank you for your time.
I appreciate it. Thanks. Take care