Re-Insulating Your House in Ontario: Whether a Building Permit is Necessary?

Are you pondering about re-insulating your house in Ontario? If so, many questions can come to your mind.

One of the questions could be—do I need a building permit to gain official permission to carry out the re-insulation project?

The good thing is that you will not have to go here and there to get the correct answer to your question because you landed on the right article, which carries the answer to your question.

Before going through the nitty-gritty aspects of re-insulating your house, let us immediately find the answer.

You do not require a building permit to carry out the insulation. But you can enjoy that privilege only if you have followed the Ontario Building Code requirements for efficient energy-saving and safe practices.

But you will require to get a building inspection done beforehand.

The Inspection Process

Typically, a certified building inspector carries out the inspection. And, you should ensure that the inspector is licensed to inspect in Ontario.

During the inspection process, the inspector reviews the work done by the insulation team.

The inspections involve assessing the location of the insulation area, air barrier systems, vapor barriers, and the minimum thermal resistance. And the inspector will inspect how the insulation is done.

After finishing the inspection, the inspector will issue a Field Inspection Report to you. And the report indicates that your building has sufficient insulation.

Complying With the Ontario Building Code for Insulation

To comply with the Ontario Building Code for Insulation, you must ensure that each section of your building, separating the inside from the outside, should have a thermal barrier, vapour retarder, and air barrier.

The insulation system of your house is made of these barriers. In addition, you should ensure that the insulation material is in contact with an air barrier to restrict airflow.

Attic Insulation

Insulating the attic of your house is crucial. So, you should not undermine it. Remember, you will lose money if you fail to insulate the attic.

Let us explain how you will see money outgo.

As hot air is lighter, it moves up to the attic and finds a way out of the building. As a result, your air conditioner will keep heating the air continuously to maintain the temperature you set indoors. And, you can easily guess the resultant affect—your electricity bill will shoot up.

But you can prevent the excess electricity consumption by your air conditioner, hence the higher electricity bills, by adding a layer of insulation to the attic.

Recently, the Ontario Building Code regulation for attic insulation has changed. According to the new rule, the R-value for attic insulation must be 60, an increase from the erstwhile 50.

Continuous Insulation

It is not difficult to figure out the meaning carried by continuous insulation. You can regard the insulation as uninterrupted insulation without any thermal bridging.

The insulation prevents air leakages and improves the performance of insulation systems. A fundamental goal of any insulation process is the reduction of the negative impacts of thermal bridges. And that means you need to ensure that hot air cannot escape during winter and cold air cannot escape during summer.

Tips for Home Insulation

Home insulation entails a significant investment. So, you should ensure that you invest in quality insulation products so that they last long.

One of the excellent choices is using spray foam insulating materials. Although the materials are expensive, they last longer and perform the best.

The Exterior Wall

Poor insulation can result in around 35% of heat escaping through the exterior walls. But you can significantly reduce the heat loss through the walls with the proper insulation on the external walls of your house.

Notably, exterior wall insulation can help to reduce your electric bills by 25%.

You can insulate your external walls using External Wall Insulation systems that play a crucial role in the insulation process.

The systems prevent thermal bridging and condensation issues. Given the systems’ capabilities, they are the best ways of imparting dependable insulation for your house.

With the External Wall Insulation systems, you can:

• Improve the thermal quality in your house
• Prevent condensation issues
• Slash electricity bills

Garage Ceiling

Again, you should not overlook your garage in your house insulation strategy. Remember, the garage can be the coolest room in your house.

Due to factors such as the large size of the door and no insulation, a cold environment can prevail inside your garage. As a result, cold air can circulate inside the garage, making the ceiling colder. At the same time, your garage floor will also turn colder.

Therefore, you should insulate the entire garage. However, if your budget is tight, you should at least insulate the garage ceiling.

If the garage ceiling is not insulated, the floor of the room above your garage will get colder. However, it will add to the overall comfort of that room during the summer but not during the winter. As a result, that room will be colder during the winter, so the air conditioner will have to work harder, entailing higher electricity bills.

You can consider spray foam as the best insulating material for your garage.

Basement Walls

The basement of your house is at a disadvantage when it comes to energy efficiency. As the basement is built beneath a house, it will be colder than the other parts of the house.

During the winter months, the coldness of the basement gets amplified. Therefore, you should insulate your basement to improve the overall energy efficiency of your house.

You can get more out of your basement with a comfortable temperature environment. For example, you can use your basement for personal or business purposes. And it can turn into a comfortable place for your family, and your kids can use it as a recreational space.

The Final Say

You seem to have realized that there can be many aspects to know in the context of a house re-insulation apart from whether a building permit is required or not. So, you can now proceed with your re-insulation project.