My husband has been an estimator in the construction field for about 20 years.  He often hears about the “new” thing long before I do, and radiant barrier was no exception.  When we were building a home back in 2003/2004, he suggested we have a radiant barrier installed.  I don’t think it was even in the upgrades list at the time, but we did it (and told our friends who were building to do the same).

Our second summer in that house, electricity rates began to climb.  It was our 5th house, and the first time I’d ever given a second thought to choosing an electric provider or knowing if the rate was fixed or variable, or even what the cost per kilowatt-hour WAS.  : )  Happily, we found that our electric bill in the most extreme months of Texas summer averaged about half of the bills our neighbors with similar floor plans were seeing (who hadn’t installed – or heard of – the radiant barrier).

My husband has heard mixed things about the spray-on, after-market radiant barrier products.  Does anyone know what the average cost/sf this product runs, how effective it is, and how it affects resale values?  Now that we’re on house #7, we’ve learned not to pour money into a house, as we rarely stay long enough to get a return on investment!  We want to be sure we’ll break even on the energy bills before investing in this.

Thanks for any/all input!

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