The Home Insulators

Insulation Contractors in Bloomfield, NJ

27.2% of Bloomfield’s 21,713 housing units sit in two- to four-family buildings: 2,937 in two-unit buildings and 2,984 in buildings of three or four. Of the Essex towns we cover, only Newark has a larger share. Another 42.0% are detached houses and 4.2% attached, and 18.8% are in buildings of twenty units or more.

The stock is old and it is rented as much as it is owned. 38.0% of units predate 1940 and 27.4% went up in the 1940s and 50s, which puts the median Bloomfield unit at 1950. 16.4% dates from the 1960s and 70s, 7.7% from the 1980s and 90s, and 10.4% has been built since 2000. 81.8% of the township predates 1980. Only 52.2% of units are owner-occupied.

Gas heats 76.9% of occupied units, electricity 13.4% and oil 5.7%. So the Bloomfield job is usually a pre-war two- or three-family, or a post-war house on a small lot toward the north end, owned by the person living in it and heated on a PSE&G gas bill.

The houses we insulate in Bloomfield

Bloomfield was incorporated in 1812 over 20.52 square miles, nearly four times the 5.36 it holds now, and Belleville, Montclair, Woodside and Glen Ridge were all cut out of it during the 19th century. Southern Bloomfield industrialized while the farms at Stone House Plains, renamed Brookdale in 1873, stayed farms; several miles of the Morris Canal ran through the township and the Oakes woollen mill supplied the Union Army. GE, Westinghouse and Schering built plants here in the 20th century, and the Charms Candy Company started and grew here. Brookdale’s farms were not developed into neighborhoods until after the First World War.

That history put the 8,251 pre-1940 units mostly in the southern half, on the streets around Watsessing and Ampere North, out from the Green whose historic district was listed on the National Register in 1978, and in the Silver Lake corner shared with Belleville. The house there is a frame two- or three-family: an up-and-down stack of flats, a shared stair chase from cellar to attic, a low-slope roof over the top flat, plaster on lath, and in the oldest ones one heating plant in the cellar serving everybody.

We price a building like that as one building, because it behaves as one. The stair chase is a vertical shaft that pulls cellar air up past every flat and dumps it into the attic. The floor cavities between flats run wall to wall and connect to the wall bays. The walls themselves are usually balloon-framed, with no fire stop between the sill and the top plate, so each stud bay is its own chimney. Blocking those bays at the attic floor and at the sill, closing the stair chase, and sealing the top plates comes before any insulation. Where the wiring has never been replaced, knob-and-tube is still lying in the attic floor, and nothing goes over it until an electrician has been through.

The 27.4% built in the 1940s and 50s, 5,954 units, is the cape and the small colonial, much of it filling in Brookdale and the north end. A cape fails at the knee wall: batts on the room side with no air barrier behind them, joist bays running out to an open eave under the bedroom floor, unbaffled slopes and a shallow flat attic. The 16.4% from the 1960s and 70s is the split and the bi-level, with settled loose-fill over a long low attic and a bedroom sitting over an open garage ceiling. With 5.7% of the township on oil, an older house still burning it repays air sealing faster than a gas neighbor does.

What went up after 2010, and what did not

1,646 Bloomfield units were built between 2010 and 2019, 7.6% of the township, against 562 in the entire decade before that. The township spent the second half of the 20th century losing its industrial base and the early 21st century redeveloping the blighted and underused property it left behind, and that is what the 2010s number is: large buildings on old commercial and industrial land.

Those buildings are not our work, and we would rather say so before anyone drives out. There is no attic over the top-floor ceiling, only a roof assembly the whole building shares. The walls have no cavity to fill and were built under the energy codes of the 2000s and 2010s, so they are already insulated. Heat comes through a unit in the wall or from a central plant, and the envelope belongs to the association or to the company that owns the whole building. If you own one apartment there, the useful call is to the board or the managing agent.

The same goes for most of the 18.8% in buildings of twenty units or more. What we do work on is everything behind them: the two- and three-family houses, the capes, the splits and the detached houses that make up the majority of the township. If you are not sure which side of that line your building falls on, tell us the address on the phone and we will tell you before we send anyone.

We seal before we insulate

Insulation slows heat moving through a surface. It does nothing about air moving through a gap. Fill a three-family attic with cellulose while the stair chase below it is still open and you have paid to insulate a chimney.

In a Bloomfield two- or three-family the sequence starts at the bottom: block the stud bays at the sill in the cellar, seal around the heating plant and the stack, then close the floor cavity between the flats where it meets the walls. Next the stair chase, top to bottom, then the top plates and every penetration at the attic plane. Only then does insulation go down over the top-floor ceiling, or into the roof slope if the top flat is finished into it.

In a Brookdale cape the order is knee walls first: block the joist bays at the eave, air barrier behind the knee wall, baffles in the slopes, then fill and finish with the rim. If a quote specifies a depth of insulation and never mentions air sealing, it is half a job.

What insulation costs in Bloomfield

Most of our projects run between $3,500 and $12,500. A two- or three-family is quoted as one building, and the number moves with the number of flats, the roof area over the top one, how many stud bays have to be blocked, and whether the cellar is workable. A single-family cape or split is usually a smaller scope: knee walls or attic plane, the garage ceiling and the rim. What spray foam costs breaks out the foam side of the price.

Open cell foam runs R-3.9 to R-4.2 per inch. Closed cell runs R-6.9 to R-7.1 per inch and also acts as a vapor retarder, which is why it costs more and why it is right in some assemblies and unnecessary in others. All products are manufactured in the United States and meet applicable building code and safety standards. After air sealing and insulating, homeowners typically save 20% or more on heating and cooling.

Insulation rebates in Bloomfield

Bloomfield is PSE&G territory for both electric and gas, so one utility runs the rebate whichever meter the savings show up on. 76.9% of the township heats with gas.

PSE&G Whole Home Energy Solutions pays up to $7,500 in rebates toward air sealing, insulation and the related work the assessment calls for, with 0% on-bill repayment of up to $25,000 available over 7 years for projects of $10,000 or less and 10 years above that or for income-qualified customers. It is written for homes of one to four units that the owner lives in. In a township where 27.2% of the units are two- to four-family and only 52.2% are owner-occupied, that sentence decides a lot of cases: the owner living in one flat of a three-family is in, and a landlord who lives elsewhere is not. Every project has to include air sealing along with the insulation. It begins with a home energy assessment by a BPI-certified contractor participating in PSE&G’s program, and the contractor sets the fee for that assessment. PSE&G does not publish per-measure amounts.

Separately, PSE&G’s Whole Home Energy Assessment is free — a shorter walk-through with small items fitted on the spot, for any PSE&G residential customer in a building of fewer than five units. PSE&G Home Weatherization installs insulation, air sealing and duct sealing at no cost for households between 250% and 400% of the federal poverty level. New Jersey Comfort Partners does the same at or below 250% of the federal poverty guidelines, $82,500 a year for a family of four in 2026, in buildings of 1 to 14 individually metered units, which covers most of Bloomfield’s older multi-family stock. Homes on oil are referred to the state’s weatherization office.

New Jersey’s IRA Home Energy Rebates have not launched; the state says they are in development and not open for applications. The federal Section 25C tax credit ended for anything placed in service after 31 December 2025, so there is no federal insulation credit on a 2026 job, whatever a flyer says. Our New York and New Jersey rebate guide has the detail.

Code and climate in Bloomfield

81.8% of Bloomfield’s housing went up before 1980, and the 38.0% that predates 1940 was built long before New Jersey’s first statewide energy subcode of 1 January 1978. Essex County is climate zone 4A; Passaic County, which starts at the Clifton line, is 5A.

New Jersey adopted the 2024 IECC on 17 August 2026. New construction gets R-49 ceilings — the 2021 edition it replaced called for R-60 — walls at R-30 cavity or R-20 plus R-5 continuous, windows at U-0.30 in the 4A counties, and air leakage of 3.0 air changes per hour at 50 pascals. A complete permit application filed under the old code is still accepted until about 16 February 2027.

Existing buildings fall under New Jersey’s Rehabilitation Subcode. Insulating the attic of a 1920s three-family does not oblige the owner to bring the rest of the building to code, and no blower-door test is required. Blown-in or batt insulation installed against the interior finish is ordinary maintenance with no permit; spray foam and other foam plastic insulation need a permit, which we pull as part of the job. R-49 is the number the state considers right for this climate, and it is what we design to.

Common questions about insulation in Bloomfield

Do you install insulation in Bloomfield, NJ?

Yes. Most of our Bloomfield work is the two- and three-family house, 27.2% of the township, taken as one building from the cellar sill to the attic plane, and the pre-1940 detached houses on the southern streets. We also do the Brookdale capes and small colonials of the 1940s and 50s, the splits of the 1960s and 70s, and the garage ceilings and rim joists that go with them. We do not work on the large apartment buildings.

How much does insulation cost in Bloomfield?

Most projects run $3,500 to $12,500. In a two- or three-family the drivers are the number of flats, the roof area over the top one, how many stud bays need blocking at the attic and the sill, whether knob-and-tube has to come out first, and how workable the cellar is. A cape or split is usually smaller: knee walls or attic plane, the garage ceiling, the rim. We give you a written scope and a price after a free walk-through.

Are there insulation rebates in Bloomfield?

Yes. Bloomfield is PSE&G territory for gas and electric. PSE&G Whole Home Energy Solutions pays up to $7,500 in rebates plus 0% on-bill repayment of up to $25,000 on owner-occupied homes of one to four units, starting with an assessment by a BPI-certified contractor in the program. The separate Whole Home Energy Assessment walk-through is free. Comfort Partners does the work at no cost for income-qualified households. The state’s IRA rebates have not launched, and federal 25C ended after 31 December 2025.

We bought a condo in one of the new Bloomfield buildings. Can you insulate it?

Almost certainly not, and that is worth knowing before you pay anyone for a visit. A building from the 2010s has full walls, no attic above your ceiling and a roof that belongs to the whole building, and the association controls the envelope. The one thing worth checking yourself is whether a bath fan or dryer vent actually reaches outside. If the answer at the building is no, the association’s engineer is the right person, not us.

Free energy audit in Bloomfield

We walk the cellar and the sill, the stair chase, the floor between flats, the top plates and the attic or roof slope, then the garage ceiling and the rim. In a three-family we look at how the heat is metered before we talk about anything else, because it changes who pays for what. We test for knob-and-tube before we quote an attic. Then a written scope and a price. No charge, no obligation.

Call 914-825-6824 or use the contact form. Open 8am–8pm, seven days. We work out of New Rochelle, NY with a 100-plus in-house crew, and we hold manufacturer installer certifications from the spray foam manufacturers we use.

Learn more