old house-insulation issue- Expertise?
I have an 1870 house – wood construction – weather – Ohio (Columus)
I have tried Drop Insulation – and basically stuffing insulation where I had access. But what seems to happens is that it creates moisture problems and then I have noticed it is no longer working as I detect drafts. As the old timers have told me – “the wood and house needs to breathe” – and I believe them.
(note: Some rooms are all the OLD Plaster and lath walls and it is not easy access.)
I have talked to Energy Auditors – but they don’t seem to understand the OLD HOUSE problems.
My question – how do I find someone with experience (who has seen these same issues before and overcome them)? How do I find the right people?
If you can share, what kind of solutions have you seen work?
Any input or thoughts are appreciated
Replies
stone foundation... full basement ?
old houses don't need to breathe.. they do need to have the proper indoor conditions
is your basement damp ? any moisture in te hous will try to go out and equalize with the dry exterior air
diffferent insulations can work better with old houses.. Denspak cellulose is one
but you have to seal the large air-leak sources.. look in the paper and see if there are any energy audit companies that can do a blower door test and find and seal the big holes
thanks for taking the time to respondStone Foundation on MOST of the house (concrete on rear) with only a ROOT Celler (aka quarter basement), and NO there is real condensation on the walls - but the air is cool - not dry - but not real damp either.Over the years we count 3 additions - extending over original porches - I know the additions don't have the same quality of stone foundation - or as deep (but even the newest ones are below frost level). I have crawled around the foundation (inside and out) and done an "adequate job" of stopping major gaps betwen the stone and the wood sills. But there are still sections where there is a slight gap and can feel a breeze -but I guessed it was from the walls.  The crawl space also gets its own heat vent - quite comfortable down there - year round - but cramped.I am hoping for an auditor that KNOWS old houses - I am thinking it is sub-speciality - but I will be open to being shown otherwise.Here is what I THINK I know, but might be misguided1. there is no moisture barrier anywhere (and not sure how to get one)2. when I have insulated - it has caused problems with paint bubling from the outside - and only near the places where I had dropped insulation. 3. Access is a problem to many of the walls - the studs go all the way down - and I don't think I have a fire stop - hence air flow - pick a wall. Just the clapboards and then the lathe and plaster - and we know clapboards don't automtically seal. Some walls - mostly upstairs are wall board.4. My concern is that if I plug up an existing flow  - that the moisture from inside the house will get caught in the insulation and drip down - potential sill problems? I was guessing that there was a happy medium - keeping an air flow against the clapboards but stopping the airflow from the house outward. Just my uneducated guess.5. Yes, I still have problems around windows and such - they were never well sealed, but I have at least a storm window in front of most of them and I am working them one at time to rebuild the old wood windows.  The replacement windows (prior to my ownership) - I know to still be a source - air just goes around the window. I putting up new trim work around one of those windows (the replacement window company never put up a DRIP edge and guess what the trim was rotting) - and when I pulled it off - I found I could see right thru to the inside - the only "protection" was a loosely attached trim decoration on the inside. In other words there are nooks and crannys with old house - also like where the sash weights used to be. You still saying an energy Audit?And you are right - I haven't paid for one yet, but when I have talked to various people - I am not getting that warm fuzzy (pun intended) - that they know how to SOLVE the problem - I know that can FIND the problem (and do a better job than I - I have a simple temperature gun and know which walls and floors)  - with their special camera - point and click.  Maybe I haven't talked to the right ones? I assume a blower test wouldn't be much use - yet.just haven't heard the details of the products and procedures.Am I making sense?Â
Edited 2/24/2009 9:06 pm ET by jackkangaroo
well ... i would think a blower door test and sealing would be first.... you want to stop the GROSS flow of conditioned, damp air , from getting into and thru your wallsMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Could the fact that the insulation that you are dropping into the wall cavity is not of proper density. Loose and fluffy insulation and major air leaks seem to be a recipe for moisture and peeling paint.
Just my thoughts, Moe
old houses don't need to breathe
Respectfully, I must disagree. All houses need to breath. It is simple science. Build a box and generate moisture and you have potential for various moisture related problems. If you don't 'vent' that moisture and get rid of it, it will continue to rise (i.e. the RH). You simply can't have that ... new or old house. Old houses breathed naturally ... built inherently loose ... but not very efficient.
New houses increase tightness to control heat loss ... but they still need to breath ... so we put in mechanical ventilation. It has been proven that controlled mechanical ventilation is better (i.e. more efficient) than natural ventilation (air leakage).
good point .. but that is not what the people he was talking to meant at all....
what they meant was that the air was supposed to circulate in the walls...so... instead of correcting me.. you could offer him some advice as to what he should do besides "drop insulate"naturally he will have to ventilate ... AFTER he gets the envelope air sealed
and he will have to control the moisture source ( s )then he will have to insulate and ventilatebut this myth about houses having to breathe is not helpful... so change your description or add to the confusionMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I detect some confusion of semantics, concepts a little here ... hazard of this mode of communication.
A wall does generally need to breath. Old walls breath a lot. New walls breath a little. Generally, assuming moisture is driven into construction by one of two methods: vapor pressure (which will occur even in the absence of air pressure differences) or air flow from air pressure differences. That moisture has to be dissapated at a rate as fast as it enters or you risk moisture problems. Even a well insulated wall with a 6 mil poly vapor retarder will need to breath to some degree ... that is why they dropped the term vapor BARRIER from discussions/references to that part of the construction.
Foam insulation generally provides a barrier to air and moisture simultaneously ... which removes some of the mystery out of installing a vapor retarder as a separate system and dealing with its own set of issues (e.g. how to seal around elect boxes). But the foam insulation comes at a price. Pay your money, take your choice. Not sure if foam is available for his application ...
I really have never heard the term 'drop insulation', so I don't know what that means really at all.
No offense intended ... not correcting you; simply adding to the discussion for some clarification ... making sure that more than one point of view is provided to try and ensure that the concepts are clear ... again, which can be difficult sometimes. I obviously understood you a little different than maybe you intended ... but maybe the OP did also.
Sometimes I join a discussion to add to the 'side conversation' rather than directly provide input to the OP. Different ways of contributing. I'm still processing the OP issue a little.
Build tight, ventilate right.Houses need to be properly ventilated. We need to keep moisture laden air away from condensible surfaces, which means stopping the flow of air willy-nilly through the thermal boundary. Houses do need a heathly rate of air-exchange, but where that air enters and exits needs to be regulated. It needs to be kept from flowing through areas where the temperature drops below the dewpoint.Steve
There is a good forum on old houses with a discussion on insulation issues at http://www.historichomeworks.com. There are a lot of variables to consider before just adding insulation to an old house, and you'll definitely get an old house point of view at that site.
jack
Here is my 2 cents.
I have a old 2 story Victorian (2800 SF) in NW IA. It gets very cold in the winter and hot and humid in the summer, and windy al year round.
I have 2x6 walls on most of the house except the back areas which are full 2x4 walls.
I worked in weatherization in the early 90s and I was able to use the equipment on the weekends. I blew the walls with densepack cellulose. The Krendal 1000 machine would pop sheetrock right off the wall. For SR we would turn the blowers down to 1/3 power. But for plaster we blew full strength.
To get densepack in old construction like this you have to close the material gate so that only about 20-30% of the gate is open .
Then we used a 10' long 1.5" flexible hose pushed up into the wall cavity. Then we blew the wall cavity until the material quit flowing then pulled the hose down in 1 ft increments.
Perhaps most important was to get the joist cavity area blown tight. Air in your wall has limited oppurtunity to get past the plaster,(it will find it's way thru somewhere) but when the air can get into your joist cavity then it can move throughout the house, like pocket doors.
We always did a blower door test 1st, and after insulated. Before insulating we sealed open stud bays in the attic and pentetrations around vent pipes and chimney flues. Styrofoam and can foam for stud bays and tin and silicone for chimneys.
If there has been remodeling done to the house look behind soffits and dropped ceilings for holes knocked in the outside walls. Plumbers and electricians are very bad at weatherization.
I'll continue in another post.
Rich
Hmmm
Pushed UP, you say
Seems like that wouldn't work well, but OTOH you could pull the baseboard & avoid lots of plaster patching, no?Hmmm....your thoughts?
jmbj
When you blow the stud cavity the with the hose the whole cavity fills (loosely)with cellulose 1st. Then the top get tighter or denser until it can't push cellulose down any tighter.
Remember the end of the hose is within 1' of the top. When it gets tight at the top then you pull down a foot and so forth until the whole cavity is tight.
but OTOH you could pull the baseboard & avoid lots of plaster patching, no?
Not in my house. The base is put on with 16 d finsih nails and you will destroy it getting it out.
Blowing cellulose is a dirty job.
Rich
MMMM....thanks
I think I'd rather run all new base than plaster a hole every stud-bay, and paint......
It's pretty hard to get the hose where you need it to be from floor level. Pretty much need a hole about halfway up the wall. I'll be doing some next week. Messy. Not fun. Don't trust anyone else around here to get it right.I like pulling a clapboard and going in from the outside, then replacing the clapboard.Steve
Edited 2/25/2009 10:16 pm by mmoogie
moogie
I like pulling a clapboard and going in from the outside, then replacing the clapboard.
I'm with you on this one.
Rich
I recently watched a crew do the balloon-framed foursquare across the the street from my house. Drilled and plugged about a thousand holes in the claps. Why?Steve
Moogie
The only insulation company in our town blows fiberglass.
When they do existing houses they drill these 2" holes and plug the holes with wood plugs. They can't get it too tight with a series of holes.
I don't understand either.
We have a guy in town who does the LIHEAP work ( I used to work with him on LIHEAP homes) and he takes the siding off, drills holes and insulates.
Rich
I'd be right with you, but I have some oddball Canadian vinyl siding that has a sort of tongue and groove join that doesn't look like you could pop a row out......
jnbj
but I have some oddball Canadian vinyl siding
I would wrestle with that then with DW after I dusted the whole house with cellulose and tore the baseboard off.
Old base is a bugger to get off cleanly.
Plus I don't think you have a handle on how much space you need under the hole to get the 1.5" tube up the wall.
We have mostly done this work from the outside at waist level or on a ladder. We usually angle the hole a little bit and it could still be difficult to get the tube to snake up the wall.
If you have wood floors the hose and the connectors could really do some damage.
Rich
Edited 2/26/2009 8:31 pm ET by cargin
All
Here is the 1.5 hose I am talking about. It is actually 1.25" inside dia. A or B
View Image
I found this at this web site. I just ave a couple hoses from the old days still around.
http://www.conservationstrategies.com/home/cs1/page_74_17/summer_or_winter_hose.html
Rich
View Image
I get your point about not trying the baseboard thing.....I was just pointing out that for some of us unlucky ducks, through the claps isn't a good option....
I think you can still get that siding off and go from the outside. I have installed 1000's of square and have never found one that couldn't be unzipped. The other thing you could do is remove the vinyl and reinstall after retro insulating. This would still be easier than fixing all the holes.
I'll try and post a pic.....it really is a tongue and groove deal....not like anything I've ever seen.
If I took it all off, I sure as heck wouldn't put it back on.....
Let me see it, I know it can be unlocked. Shoot, I can even unlock aluminum and steel siding. Not without cuts though!
jrnbj
I agree with frammer, any vinyl siding can be taken apart. It's the easiest siding out there for insulating.
I have taken may different vinyl sidings off, and steel and aluminum.
Steel and aluminum are easy to get off but hard to get back on.
Go out and buy a zipper tool.
Rich
Jeeze, do you guys read...I own a zipper tool....it wouldn't help me....this is some Canadian ####....it's not what you think
jrnbj
Jeeze, do you guys read...
You own a ripper tool. I agree that won't help you much.
Canadian bacon stuff. I thought we were talking about vinyl siding.
Gee, I guess we don't read very well.
Sorry for judging your vinyl siding to be an easy cross to bear.
To understand a man's siding, one needs to work with his vinyl siding for a day.
Take the piece of vinyl siding off my own house before I tell my neighbor that it's easy to remove his Canadian #### vinyl siding.
Sorry I am in a good mood and willing to play around a little. If it doesn't come off easily then that's the end of the story, I believe you. I have never seen what you describe.
Your options are to dust up the house, pay the gas bill or conquer the Canadian ###.
Rich
I like your idea of dense packing cellulose, but I have an old (1913) house That has some odd construction and I would like some opinions about my options.
House has a stone exterior (on Lake Michigan, so they are round lake stones). Then sheating (1X) and then the wall cavity then plaster over lath. The oddity is that for some reason, the 2X wall studs are on the flat (in other words, wall cavity is about 1.75 inches deep instead of 4 inches) I have no idea why someone did it this way in 1913, but that's the deal.
The house is balloon framed and the studs rise about 1 foot above the floor joists in the attic. I can look down every stud bay and see down to the sole plate (except where windows intervene). Given that I have access to each stud bay, is it possible or reasonable to dense pack the stud bays if I can get a 1.5" hose down to the bottom? I know I am not gaining much R-value, because of the shallow stud bays, but I know each of these stud bays acts as a chimney to allow air circulation wherever there is a penetration on the lower level.
If it doesn't make sense to try to pack cellulose in the stud bays, my other thought is to us XPS "plugs" plus spray foam in the upper foot of the balloon framing to seal all the stud bays to minimize air movement.
Any thoughts on making this old oddity of a house more energy efficient?
Bill
salt.... i wouldn't spend any time or money trying to insulate those 1.5" stud pocketsyou have so much thermal bridging ( with the flat studs ) that your gain will be almost nili wold consider removing the lath & plaster and doing a Mooney wall interiorbut short of that i'd look to : air sealing... windows..... & .... atticMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Mike
I think what you suggest makes sense. I really need to limit air movement, I know those shallow stud walls won't allow much increased R-value. I want to work within the existing walls if possible, since all the window and baseboard woodwork is old attractive oak. I hate to mess with the interior unless I have to. We have replaced the old windows and it makes a big difference. I'm looking for the next big bang for the buck.
Bill
a blower door / evergy audit will show where the biggest bang for the buck will be
but off-hand , i'd say ATTIC
and BAND -JOIST ( if you have a basement )
and also if you have a basement and your furnace is down there, think about insualting the basement wallsMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Mike
How you doing?
Looks like we are on the same thread at the same time.
I have to get back to work now. I have a little work and then some office time today.
We got 1/4" of ice this morning. Kind of messy around here today.
Rich
I have two jobs I'm figuring, both design / build.... but the third one is the one I thought we would start in November, which is still waiting on the architect
out of my control....
oh well... I wonder what the poor people are doingMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Szlt
If you are going to insulate the stud cavities (M Smith has a good point), then I would ask 1st how much it would cost to foam the cavities. If that is possible.
If you are going to use cellulose then I would do the XPS and expanding foam, then blow the wall and foam the hole shut. Then do under the windows with 1" holes on the inside. Get DW to go to the mall for a loooong afternoon. LOL
You will not get much insulation any of these bays. Shut the material gate a little more to get a higher air to material ratio. And be patient.
If you get a good dense pak then it will help with air infiltaration.
You stud bays open to the attic is like having a window open in the winter, it is just sucking air out of the house.
Your biggest bang for the buck is to air seal the stud bays with XPS and foam.
Rich
Thanks for the replies. I definitely need to close off those stud bays. I recently installed a wall outlet in an exterior wall and I could feel the air flowing up the stud bay - a perfect chimney. After 96 years of blowing conditioned air out the attic, I need to seal this house up.
It's a 4-step program:
1) Make absolutely sure there is NO outside source for moisture. That may mean reflashing window & door openings (or maybe flashing them for the first time since they were never flashed to begin with), making sure the roof is absolutely tight, gutters working properly and seal all other potential sources of moisture. (Caulk doesn't count for this! Proper construction and flashing is a must.) Don't forget to inspect the chimney in this step. Lined? Flashed properly?
If the house has wood siding, sealing may be tough since I've seen balloon-framed, wood-sided homes of this age that had no sheathing, so any water blowing in between the claps was automatically in the stud cavities. If your siding is shiplapped, you may fare better in this regard. If you're lucky, you'll have sheathing and 150 yr-old tar paper under the siding. Not much, but better than nothing. As a last resort, remove the siding if necessary, install a moisture barrier (not a vapor barrier), and re-side.
As for the foundation leaking, patching from inside might make you feel better, but it does absolutely nothing from the standpoint of drying out the wall. If your foundation walls are wet, dig you must. Properly waterproof the foundation and install drainage. You may need to be careful with this -- many houses I've seen from this era really don't have footers and you need to be very careful not to disturb supporting soils at the base of the foundation. (Redirecting runoff may help, but I've never seen it completely solve the problem.)
2) Properly vent your roof. This may mean installing soffit and ridge vents, or gable vents.
3) After finishing #1 and #2, blow celulose in the walls and top ceiling. Either from inside or outside. If the house is brick, it can be blown in through small holes drilled into the mortar joints. If it's wood siding, you can drill holes, but they're awfully tough to make disappear and I'd drill and blow from the inside. Patching a 1" hole in plaster, even if there are a lot of 'em, is really no big deal. (BTW, the "drop method" of insulation you mention is probably next to worthless since it is unlikely you could get the density you'd need to achieve any effective insulation value.)
3) Paint the inside walls with a moisture barrier paint if you want to save the plaster. If the plaster is not worth saving, remove it (you can leave the lath on), install a vapor barrier and re-surface the wall.
4) File for Bankruptcy. ;-) Ain't rehabbing an old house to modern standards a blast?
Energy auditors are rarely contractors. They are guys with cameras, blower doors and smoke generators. They can find leaks and areas of energy loss, but don't necessarily know how to properly correct them. If Columbus has a historic district, look for contractors who do a lot of work with those homes and get references.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
jack
You can find most of the air leaks without the blower door if you know what you are looking for. You don't seem to want to the blower door thing.
Dropping insulation in the wall is not very effective. Rent a machine and try to find a 1.5" hose online. If the rental place has a Force 2 (pretty popular around here) it is adequate. The Force 2 has a material gate to regulate material output. For dense pack you want high airflow and low material output. You want the oppisite for blowing attics.
As I said in the beginning I blew my house 15 years ago. I have had some peeling paint. But most often it on the trim so the moisture is exiting the house around the windows.
My lastest room remodeling I am installing 2" XPS and furring strips to the inside walls and then sheetrocking. I remove the plaster but not the lathe.
I was a professional insulator with good equipment, and I still found walls that were not blow to the level that I expected in the last room remodel. I drilled test holes.
Other areas of the house I have been very pleased with the density of the cellulose job.
Attached is a picture of the work in progress. I put the 2" XPS on the ceiling, slants and side walls.
Rich
View Image
jack
To insulate the walls we removed 1 piece of siding and drilled a 2.5" hole then ran the hose up the wall.
If 2 story the 2 sets of holes. Or more if needed.
Rich
In Columbus, I don't think you do. I live here too.
The most important thing to do is to try and seal for air LEAKS. That is make sure you have weatherstripping on doors and windows, if you can remove the trim around them and seal with foam.
Properly installed attic insulation will help from losing heat in the winter.
And maybe try and seal where the house sits on the foundation walls.
The rest of it won't get you much gain.
Try the Old HOuse Journal web site,
http://www.oldhousejournal.com/talk/index.shtml
Bryan
I did weatherization for the LIHEAP program for about 3 years.
We did blower door tests before and after the job. We got our bonus on the drop of the CFM. We were motivated to drop the CFM.
We came to the conclusion (so did the state of Iowa) that you can take an armful of window weatherstip and sash locks and spend all day tightening up the windows and you won't change the reading on the blower door.
Gross air infiltration around windows, like shutting completely, yes that will do some good.
Doors are worth the effort.
Alot of air infiltration is hidden, like you mentioned with the foundation. Or holes in the walls behind soffits or dropped ceilings.
Side attics are another source of air infiltration. Oftentimes the joists were wide open in a side attic.
A good dense pak is the 1st course of action in sealing air infiltration. Well may be open stud cavities to the attic and plumbing chases is the 1st and easist.
If I was going to foam around the windows then I think I would opt to take the sashes out and reinstall them with the aluminum guide/weatherstrip system. But before I reinstalled them I would secure the jamb with 3" screws.
Then drill a series of 1/4" holes thru the sides of the jamb (that will be cover by the new guide system) and seal a gaps around the window with expanding foam.
my 2 cents
Rich