I am beginning the process of renovating my old house, actually adding on to the existing structure. The house is approx 100 years old and is located in CT. The house has balloon framing and does have some insullation in it. However, some of the chutes, do not have any insulation (this I believe is due to electric boxes and wiring). I am not sure what the current insulation is called, but it reminds me of a loose packing material. While replacing the ropes on one of our old windows, all of the insulation in that chute, came pouring out. This past winter helped me realize that the house needs more insulation.
Currently the house has very old aluminum siding which we are planning on replacing with vinyl.
My question is what options do I have to add insulation to the house? I know I can blow insulation into the walls or add foam under the vinyl. Another option is to remove the clapboard siding and add 1 to 1 1/2″ of foam under the vinyl. This would obviously give us a higher R value.
Does anyone have any thoughts or other suggestions, on what the best way to go?
Thanks
Replies
best deal is an energy audit.. with a blower door test and smoke candles.. then seal the drafts... have your walls blown with cellulose now.. before you reside.. have a cap blown in the attic... we use 16" to 24" in our attics
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Any ideas what an energy audit should cost?
no... some states have special contractors subsidized by the utilities ( by YOU , in other words )... so call your state energy office firstMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
i agree with mike
start at the soucre put toghter a whish list as to what you intend to do to the home .
how long will you stay in the home ?? do you want to change any window locations
what are the current heat bills ? how old is the furnace ?what type of fuel does it use
what is your age ?any kids ?? if so how old
Hello,
Hello,
I also have a 3 family 1885 Queen Anne Victorian home in East Providence, RI. The past couple of cold winters have made me think seriously about insulating. As you can imagine there is zero insulation in the house currently. I am thinking that a blown in insulation may be a good choice. There are a few challenges to this. Currently the house is sided with asbestos shingles over wood clapboards. The house still has some active knob and tube wiring.
My understanding is that the knob and tube wiring would need to be replaced before insulated to prevent it from potentially over heating. I can handle that.
How about the insulation? Obviously, drilling through the asbestos shingles is out. Both for health and visual reasons. Could be blown in from the inside? Many of the walls have ½” sheet rock over horse hair plaster and lath. I would prefer not to punch holes in each stud bay. Many of the walls have hand painted finishes that would be difficult to replicate. Could I remove the base board and have the insulation blown up? Does this sound crazy. Maybe.
I would love to hear anyone experience or advice about something like this.
Many thanks
Tim
Like Jon said;
Start with the low hanging fruit, and seal the attic plane first.
In terms of the walls, you may be able to blow the lower levels by removing the baseboards upstairs (if it is balloon framed), but you would still need to blow from there up.
Blowing inside is dusty, though. It might be easier to remove and reinstall some of the siding. Asbestos is not hazardous unless it is busted up.
Edited 4/1/2004 6:27 pm ET by csnow
"
Like Keb said;"
CS,
Keb was the original poster. But hey, it's April Fools Day.
Jon
If you are going to reside with vinyl, then first remove the aluminum siding and then blow in cellulose insulation in wall cavities. Once aluminum is removed, you can either drill holes through existing (original) clapboards an into wall cavities...these holes are plugged with appropiately sized plastic caps.......or you can remove various pieces of clapboards to expose cavities and/or drill thru wall sheathing and then re-install clapboards in place.
Since you plan to vinyl side, easiest and simplest method is to leave clapboards in place, drill holes where needed, blow in insul, and then cap off. Vinyl siding will hide the caps, and no one is the wiser; but your house will be a lot warmer and quieter.
Adding ridgid foam to the exterior of your home and then residing overtop creates a lot of finish trim problems around existing doors and windows. Everything has to be "padded" out to accomodate the new wall thickness.
Blown-in insulation is easy to work with, and less expensive than foam, and will not alter exterior shape of structure. I've done this method with 2 older homes such as yours with great success.
I also have installed 3/4 inch ridgid foam before vinyl siding (my own home) and wish I had never done so...and I will never do such again.
Davo
Why not add 3/4" rigid insulation before you resided? Just curious? Biff
Davo,
Why would you not do the rigid foam again? Just curious about the reasons.
Does anyone know if there are any full articles out there specifically on the process of blowing in insulation from the exterior? I am planning on residing my home, circa 1910, and as long as the walls are stripped I would love to go ahead and add to the non-existent insulation. Does this process take any special or different kind of insulation?
Any rough estimates as to what doing something like this might cost per square of wall? I am not sure how something like this is priced so excuse my ignorance on this.
Thanks for any pointers anyone can give me.
I am not sure what the current insulation is called, but it reminds me of a loose packing material. While replacing the ropes on one of our old windows, all of the insulation in that chute, came pouring out.
I don't know what kind of insulation you have, but it sounds a little like vermiculite. If so, you should treat it cautiously. There is a pretty good chance it contains some asbestos. Most vermiculite in the US was mined a short distance from an asbestos mine, and is contaminated with asbestos. It's fine if you just leave it alone, but if you spill it into the living area, some asbestos dust could get into your house. Also, if you try to go blowing more insulation into the walls where this vermiculite is already located, you might force asbestos dust into your living space. You don't want asbestos dust in your living space.
Take a look at these two links to see pictures of it.
http://www.radonpro.com/vermiculite---epa-photo.jpg
http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/asbestos/images/zonolitepicture.jpg
-Dan
Edited 6/16/2004 2:50 pm ET by Glatt
Glatt,
I took a look at the pictures and chances are it is vermiculite. Based on your comments, I probably don't want to mess around with this.
Do you have any comments or experience with insulated vinyl? I was looking at a few different types online (Certainteed for one) and I thought that maybe a viable option.
Thanks again.
Watch out for knob and tube wiring in stud bays. You should not insulate around this...fire hazard. The best thing, of course, is to rewire...
"My question is what options do I have to add insulation to the house?"
Most heat goes out through the roof. Remember that. Too many people concentrate on the walls and windows. A chain is only as strong as the weakest link.
Jon
What I did to my c:1680 farm house (see website below)when I bought it was to use a hole saw to drill my holes from inside my house which is timber framed. I blew cellulose in and reinstalled the piece of plaster I cut out. Worked like a charm. the house hardly had any furniture in it when I did this so that made it a bit easier in a several respects.
My heating bills on this 5000 sq ft house are quite low now and the A/C keeps the house pretty cool for a long time even after I turn it off in the heat of the summer months. I also added storm windows which helped quite a bit.
First thing you need to do is to be sure that you don't have any knob-and-tube wiring still in use in the house -- it's a major no-no to insulate around that stuff.
Then you have a bunch of options, depending on how much tear-up you're planning/willing to tolerate.
There are various options for adding an inch or three of foam on the outside, but they all create complications in terms of needing to extend window frames, etc. Most of these are a "system" of one sort or another and you need to pick a system and follow it cookbook style.
Beyond those options, you can remove either the inside or outside skin (plaster on the inside or siding/sheathing on the outside) and spray in foam. This is probably the best option IF you will be doing that much tearup anyway, but obviously it's extreme if you'd rather save the plaster and not tear off all the old siding and sheathing.
If you will be residing (either over existing siding or removing old siding but leaving sheathing) then blown in cellulose is an attractive alternative. The existing insulation (that sounds like vermiculite or something similar) may be a complication, but probably not a deal-breaker -- you should be able to add new cellulose on top so long as the existing stuff doesn't create voids and is a reasonably good insulator itself.
Even if you weren't residing (eg, you had existing wood insulation in good condition), it's possible to either remove pieces of siding to insulate or bore through and then plug the siding such that its integrity and appearance is preserved. My parents' old farmhouse was insulated this way.
If you need to remove the current insulation it might be possible to remove a course of siding at the bottom of the wall and "drain" it out.