With energy costs continuing to rise, many homeowners are seeking to better seal and insulate their walls to maintain heating and cooling costs to an absolute minimum. Each component of the building envelope may give rise to the entire insulation value of a house, including the siding that forms the structure’s outermost skin. Vinyl siding provides better insulation performance than fiber cement siding, but the distinction is not significant.
Rating Insulation
The R-value is a standardized measurement of a material’s resistance to heat transference, and the higher its R-value, the better. As an example, the fiberglass insulation within a home’s 3 1/2-inch wall cavity is rated at R-13.
Fiber Cement and Vinyl R-Values
Fiber cement siding does not add much insulation to a wall system, measuring in at a mere R-0.50. That’s a little less than you’ll get from vinyl siding, which can be rated as R-0.61, but the difference is very slight. In every situation, however, that R-value leads to the overall insulation of your wall system.