Oh dear...energy audit today

[triguy128]

Loose fill and fiberglass batts do little to reduce infiltration. Actually if there is air movement throguh fiberglass batts, the insualton value is minimal... and all it does it act as a big air filter... and worse, a nice place for mold to grow if you get condensation inside the walls.

You need to locate and seal the air leaks first with spray foam or caulk. Actually, once a wall cavity is fairly well sealed, the insulation value of the air gap alone isn't that bad.

Pulley covers do a descent job to seal weight pockets. Good quality storm window will seal most window air leaks fiarly well. Interior storms even better... and they will make the house a LOT quieter. Double glazing where the materials and/or thickness of the glazing is different on hte prime and the storm absorbs noise even better than thermal pane windows since acoustically they have different resonance frequencies and absorb noise differently.

Starp by looking at weather stripping on entry doors and storm door. Close off and seal unused chimneys (largest source of leaks.... big time), consider using rope caulk on the windows with the worst seals as a temporary measure if you can live without those windows being operable. Finally consider having the rim joist and in your case hte crawl space sealed professionally with closed cell spray foam.... then adeuately the crawl space to prevent moisture. Even just 1-2" will air seal it and provide insualtion nearly as good as 6" batts. In the attic, if it's unvented, use closed or open cell under hte roof deck. If it's a vented attic, then remvoe whatever is in ther now, store it temporrarily in bags, spray foam 1-2" of clsoed cell (a "butter coat"), then put the loose fill and/or batts back in over that.


After reading more, I'm leaning more towards closed cell, evne if you can only afford 1-2". It acts as a 2nd water barrier if you have a roof leak too. What would you rather have, a section of the roof rotted, or major interior water damage. IF you have a significant roof leak, odds are the roof deck will be rotted anyway. Better to tear out and replace a section of roof deck, than tear out a celings, flooring, furniture and repair major water damage. The upstairs floor and joists are permenantly damaged from a roof leak the PO's had last apring that wasn't discovered for a few days because they weren't livign in the house.



As for the roof deck "overheating" because of the foam. Even a well vented attic still gets to 120F inside on a hot day. Most of the cooling effect of a roof is from convection current on the roof surface and radiant heat. Studies have shown that the differece is around 5F.

[mfglickman]

Seems like your crawlspace might be a good candidate for tigerfoam. I plan to use some for my unvented attic space, attic is only probably 2 to 3 feet high since I have a full third floor. Tigerfoam is weatherproof too and can be used for an amazing number of things you would not think of and is DIY.

Ooh I am going to look into Tigerfoam, thanks. I was wishing there was a DIY foam product.

The crawlspaces are unconditioned spaces. Two are dirt floor and one is concrete. One of the dirt floor ones is only about 2.5 feet high and dimensions of the room above are 35X19 so it's daunting to imagine going in there to insulate at all (claustrophobia, anyone?).

The second dirt floor one is tall enough for me to stand (I'm 5'5) but not for anyone over 6 feet. That's the one under the old house and it's got very irregular spacing between the joists.

The concrete one is about 3 feet high and has 16 inch centers so easy to roll batt insulation in there and secure with those wire thingies.

Question - the hearth that's not in use is now covered by a reflective insulation board and some painter's tape (thanks for the suggestion) and it's making a big difference in that room. How would you DIY a solution to seal up that hearth permanently? It has not been used for woodburning in at least 50 years and anyone who wanted to do so would have to do thousands of $ in work to get the chimney up to code so I'm not concerned about a future owner wishing to un-seal. I do want to keep it looking essentially the way it does now, though.

[shazapple]

I would put a cap on the chimney, then cut a foam plug for the bottom and seal around the edges with spray foam.

[RaeSzafir]

My accountants office had their's sealed with a piece of plexiglass cut and trimmed with a flex material almost like a gasket of some sort. That way it just looked like an empty fireplace unless you got up close to it. Then you saw the glass. Might be a nice solution for you.

[Nancy W]

I am not suggesting this, but once I went on a house and garden tour. One lovely old house was was on a farm. To stop the air drafts caused by the chimney, they had stuffed a large bale of straw up in the flue. It apparently worked for some time, but about noon on the day of the tour, the bale of straw fell put of the flue and because the baler twine had rotted the then loose straw and dust went EVERYWHERE. Despite all the lovely houses, that was the talk of the day!

[mfglickman]

I am not suggesting this, but once I went on a house and garden tour. One lovely old house was was on a farm. To stop the air drafts caused by the chimney, they had stuffed a large bale of straw up in the flue. It apparently worked for some time, but about noon on the day of the tour, the bale of straw fell put of the flue and because the baler twine had rotted the then loose straw and dust went EVERYWHERE. Despite all the lovely houses, that was the talk of the day!

Yikes! What a mess!!!

So my little fireplace that needs to be closed has a new metal cap sealing it from the top, and there is a sheet metal piece closing it up from underneath but this is not insulated. I have some roxul left over from the woodstove and pellet stove installs so I can stuff that up there and foam it.

There is significant air leakage from around the masonry where it meets the surround. I guess I could go at it with clear caulk - the auditors suggested I hire a mason to seal it up correctly but I really don't want to change the look of it with any modern pointing or stone work. It would need a total rehab to be used for fire anyway...so would it be terrible to try to go at it with spray foam where it's not visible and clear caulk where it is?