We insulate the dining room illustrated

As my DH has requested, I have added some pics of his recent work. I hope you are impressed with the mess, and if pressed I would have to confess that it is still there. I know, just what am I doing that I can't get it done? The dust was fairly well contained to the room and when Troy asked how bad it was, I could honestly say that I didn't notice any difference in the level of dust in the rest of the house...(you may recall that I was out of town when Joel and he did the work--thanks again, Joel!)


And here are some views of Troy's "window boxes."

I do hope you have found these pictures illustrative.
-c

Deconstruction makes way for construction

Hello again. Just some pictures to show you some progress in the dining room. Every time I try to take a picture of an entire room I am more impressed with the photos in magazines. Sure, they have better camera accessories, but it still takes a lot of skill. Anyway, here is some of the newly completed framing in the dining room:The wall on the left faces south (the front of the house). As you can see, we have very fancy curtains hanging in the windows. Ok, maybe not...

Next we have evidence of Troy going foam-crazy. Well, maybe I'll let you decide on the crazy when you visit our crazy-like-a-fox warm house when it's done. Anyway, evidence of his quest to insulate:

And the next picture is evidence of the thickness of the exterior walls: Twelve inches, baby! Forgive the blur, please. I took the pic left-handed, and in quite a contorted position, as I recall. All so that the numbers would be upside right. You're welcome. The window boxes will be even wider. I'm sure we'll put some window seats in the biggest two windows.

Next are the panels he's inserting between the ceiling joists. Formerly, the house didn't have anything of the kind which resulted in a big mess and a not very effective job when they blew in insulation. Since we are also blowing in insulation, we wanted to do it right, of couse. The panels will keep the insulation from being blown all above the ceiling and make sure it can settle properly in the walls. This may seem obvious, but may I repeat that the previous "home improvers" did not do it? With warmer weather upon us, work on the shop will take precedence but the plan will be to have the drywall up and insulation blown in by next winter. That gives us some time, right?

And lest you think I will have one beautifully finished room when that is done, let me show you the interior walls of the same room: (the door leads to a closet, and the right white "column" is a chimney we can't get rid of)Yeah, and all the exterior walls will have precedence over these ones. Ah well, all in good time...

To leave on a positive note, can I tell you how nice it is to be able to sit in the house in a T-shirt? Mmmm...I love sunny days.

-christina

Winning the war against cold.

OK, technical update for those interested in remodeling an old house.

As you can see from the photographs posted by my lovely wife, we gutted our dining room. I tore the plaster off, then the lath boards, then removed the (spotty and inadequate) cellulose insulation. So, right down to the bare studs. There is nothing quite as dirty or quite as satisfying as tearing plaster off a wall with a sledgehammer and a crowbar.

I debated for a time about leaving all the old stuff in place, and just building the additional wall to give us 12” thick walls when finished. The old walls would contribute some insulating power, and the new insulation/wall would do most of the work.

The problem is two fold. First, I really want to control air infiltration. On a windy day, the effectiveness of most insulation can drop dramatically if air infiltration is not controlled. This is especially true for fiberglass insulation. The reduction can be as much as 50% and it happens when you need the r-value the most.

With new house construction, this is easy. Just wrap the house in Typar or Tyvek on top of the plywood sheathing (before the siding or bricks), and you’re done. Of course, I don’t have that luxury since I am not tearing the siding off my house. As an alternative, I put the “house wrap” on from the inside. I cut a piece of Tyvek for each stud bay and staple it up. If you examine the photos, you see that the Tyvek makes a “C” shape in cross section, since it’s installed on the left stud, the wall sheathing and the right stud.

Once the cellulose is blown in, this will push the Tyvek tight against the studs and sheathing, and will help seal the house wrap to the framing, reducing air infiltration. Without tearing out all the old plaster, insulation, etc, I could not install the Tyvek in the proper place.

The second half of the problem is the fact that this is an old house. I really want and need to know what’s inside those walls. So far, we haven’t found any bad concealed termite damage except in the basement. That’s the nasty “swiss cheese” wood you see in the other photo, now gone/replaced. But the previous insulation job was absolutely terrible. Either they did it themselves, and badly, or a contractor did it and figured the owner wouldn’t know the difference because you can’t see it. I would estimate that 30-40% of the wall was uninsulated.

So the general idea is to tear the old stuff out right down to the studs. Line the wall with Tyvek, build a second wall to make the total thickness ~12”, install all new wiring and plumbing as needed, then a new vapor barrier, then dry wall. Then we blow a foot of cellulose into the wall, finish the drywall then paint and trim. This technique works well for big older homes with nice big rooms, since you will lose at least eight inches on every outside wall. For a house with smaller rooms, you need other techniques like adding the insulation on the outside, or using super high r-value insulation where you can get away with a 6-8” total depth.

That's it for now, tune in soon for further exciting developments.

troy