How do you insulate the 2nd story walls
BrunoS
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
I’ve been having issues with a new house where the upstairs gets way too hot in the summer. The upstairs rooms are all insulated with fiberglass batting, both ceilings and walls. My plan is to buy more fiberglass bats and roll them out on the ceiling that is exposed to the attic, but am unsure what to do to further insulate the walls of those rooms. The attic gets very hot during the summer months due to a lack of any substantial shade.
Any ideas?
Someone suggested I attach styrofoam sheets to the walls in of the rooms in the attic on top of the current fiberglass… It would be easy to do, but I’m concerned it might create problems with moisture… anyone have any experience with this?
Replies
Unclear
You're talking about adding fiberglass to an attic floor, or to a ceiling?
And, you want to add insulation to walls that are open, or walls that are finished with drywall?
Your "second story" -- is
Your "second story" -- is this a "half story" where the rooms are in what one might regard as the attic, with the "walls" being knee walls that back up to the sloped roof?
Where is this house located?
What about ventilation
Adding more vents to the attic space might do as much as adding more insulation. if the insulation is inadequate, that I would insulate as well, but don't overlook adding more vents as a possibel solution. My parents house was kind of like what you are describing. In the summer, it would get hot in the afternoon and it would take all night to get it cooled off. Even running the air conditioner wouldn't cool the house down once it got hot... Their house was built in the 60s, and didn't have near enough venting. We added more soffit vents and the house is now fairly cool in the afternoon. When they re-do their roof in the next few years, we will be adding more venting up high as well...
When they re-roof, they should look at more insulation!
I agree, to a point....
They already had some more attic insulation blown in (was R-30, now is about R-45) before we added venting and while it helped, it wasn't the solution. The house was still hot in the afternoon due to the heat build up in the attic. When we doubled the soffit vents, the house was much cooler. Now if I can add adequate vents higher on the roof and balance the high and low vents, i think we will have a pretty good system...
When we do the roof, I definitely plan to look at the insulation again and see if there are places that it can be improved, but realistically going from R-45 to anything higher won't help much..
You'll notice that Bruno hasn't been back to answer any questions.
For more attic ventilation you might want to install a ridge vent.
Remove ridge caps, cut roof sheathing 2" both sides of ridge, install prefab ridgevents and shingle over.
Add gable vents where possible