First burn of the season is underway

TX-L said:

Hey Osceola, we're sort of distant neighbors! I'm just outside Barnes Corners. No snow yet! But here's one for ya from Montague:

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Drive through Tug Hill on 177 about once a month. You get any decent electricity rates from those windmills? Or is all the power transmitted away?

Scotty Overkill said:

CONGRATS, DENNIS! It's cool and crisp outside this evening, but still waaaaay too warm here in the house (almost 73 degrees). Hoping for a burn this weekend. If I hadn't insulated the house so darn good when we remodeled, we'd have been burning for a week or so.....

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Its a great feeling inst it? My place is far from super insulated, but I can tell that the air sealing I did and the MassSave insulation work are making a difference. Yesterday it was 70 then dropped to 44 overnight. I just closed up the windows and the house was still 71F this morning with no heat.

Its a real challenge on a home this age.

On the one hand its easy to make HUGE gains with only small improvements - I had holes in the floor of the attic big enough to climb through, and even though I was only able to get R15-18 in some parts of the ceiling, the improvement from R zero will make a much more dramatic impact on the bills than taking a modern house from R30 to R40.

On the other hand a lot of preservationists believe that stuffing the walls of an old place like this will lead to moisture issues and rot. I have to watch things closely.

If that is the case jharkin, a lot of us are in trouble. For one, I am not worried and enjoying the difference in the way the home is after super insulating.

For the wood heat, not gonna happen here for a bit even if it hits 30's .

Just now it has cooled off to close the windows. I hope another month of open windows.

Love this time of year.

Love this time of year too. Especially early mornings.

Damn I like S Ontario this time of year when the colors change. Just north of SSM

I got honey i'm cold so to make her happy i fired, the beast up last night for about 2 hours.

Backwoods Savage said:

If that is the case jharkin, a lot of us are in trouble. For one, I am not worried and enjoying the difference in the way the home is after super insulating.

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The problem is with drafty old houses that were never insulated originally, like mine. Because they are so drafty its easy for humid interior air to get into the wall cavities in the winter.... But the same draftiness allowed that moisture an escape route as well - so you never built up enough to be an issue. Apparently when we went on an insulating binge the first time in the 70s it was all the rage to blow in loose fill insulation, but nothing was done about the draftiness. So what happens is that your moist indoor air gets into the wall cavity and now it slowly soaks the insulation which stays wet. Over time you get mold and rot, and the cost of fixing those problems can be far more than the savings of insulating.

Modern building code requires tons of insulation - but it also requires interior vapor barriers and everything to be tightly sealed - taped and caulked - to prevent that moist air from ever getting into the wall cavities in the first place.

The answer was to to change the approach to insulation retrofitting. Rather than loose fill we use spray foam or cellulose dense pack - to make it harder for the moist air to move through the insulation. We also have to be very careful to air seal on the interior - caulking any possible crack. And carefully control interior moisture. For me that means I can never turn off my basement dehumidifier.

A sure giveaway of an old house that was improperly insulated is bubbling paint on the siding. Moisture in the walls with nowhere to escape...

TX-L said:

Hey Osceola, we're sort of distant neighbors! I'm just outside Barnes Corners. No snow yet! But here's one for ya from Montague:

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Yup not to far away from each other - here is one from Osceola