Insulation gets talked about almost entirely as a winter fix, something that keeps the furnace from running nonstop in January. That framing misses half the story. In Denver, where attic temperatures can climb well past 150 degrees on a summer afternoon, insulation is doing just as much work keeping heat out as it does keeping …

Attics get most of the attention in insulation conversations, and for good reason, since they’re usually the single biggest source of heat loss in a home. Exterior walls quietly lose almost as much ground, and because the problem is hidden behind drywall rather than sitting in an open attic, most homeowners never think to check …

Picture a Denver morning in January. The furnace has been running since 5 a.m. The living room is still cold. That’s not a furnace problem, most of the time. It’s a leak problem. Homes lose more heat through hidden gaps and cracks than most people realize, tiny openings around outlets, attic hatches, and utility lines …

Sarah woke up last winter to frost on the inside of her bedroom window. She turned the furnace up. The room stayed cold anyway. That’s usually the moment a homeowner starts asking what’s actually going on with their insulation. In Denver, where the temperature can swing forty degrees between morning and afternoon, an aging thermal …