North Jersey Balloon Framed House, Attic Insulation
Hey everyone,
New here to the forums. We have been working on the attic in our North Jersey house we moved into two years ago. The previous owners had plastic stapled to the entire roof cieling so we took it down because it was filled with debris from when the new roof was being put on (? just a guess). Anyway we rewired all the electric in the attic that was running down to the 2nd floor, and now we have turned our attention to insulating the attic. I have a few concerns:
1. The attic is not vented. I have read a few past posts on this forum regarding venting vs. not venting and am still unsure of what we should do about that.
2. Like I said previously it’s a balloon framed house and I’m not sure if that would have any impact on how we should insulate the roof of the attic (and should we insulate the floor of the attic? we didn’t really want to because it would be completely inconvenient). The previous owners stuffed debris – newspaper styrofoam boxes etc. at the sides of the attic where the roof would meet the floor cause there are spaces, what should we do about that?
3. We had bought R-19 insulation from Lowes yesterday (23″ width 6.5″ depth) to put up on the ceiling but I’m not sure if this is the best method. After reading the forums here I’m concerned about moisture and not having a vented attic. I read some posts regarding cells, foam, and got me confused since I’m new to the whole home owning thing lol. I don’t know if that is standard over the rolls of insulation I had bought at Lowes.
Basically I need to know what is the optimal way of insulating the ceiling of the unvented attic in a balloon framed house. Thanks for listening and your responses!
Replies
Is there any insulation above the uppermost living area?
Not sure what zone you're in but R-19 sounds kind of low.
Jusz in case, keep your receipts and don't open any insulation packages until you get some workable opinions.
Go to BuildingScience and see what is applicable for you there. With older houses, their existence up to this point in time was dependent on their ability to breath and dry out all the moisture that got in or was generated inside. Stuffing modern insulation around all willy nilly with its vapor blocking properties is a great way to kill your old house.
Make a plan for the whole house before you get going!
No insulation between the second floor and attic as far as we know. We've talked to someone else who has suggested for us to use a spray foam since it's an unvented attic though.