So I set out to insulate and re-finish my old cape cod upstairs. It was always very drafty, cold in winter and hot in summer. It is divided into two halves (bedrooms). 1 bedroom had been recently renovated and insulation added. The other side was all original plaster and lath from what I could tell, and nothing was insulated except the floor of the knee wall attic on the sides. There was the laundry room below it that was also in need of rehab, so I set out to rip out all the old stuff including unused stairs that went up from the laundry room area, air seal, insulate, and put up new drywall (and new knee walls and studs where needed). I planned to do away with the 'knee wall attics' and make the entire space conditioned, sealing and insulating against the roof and what little bit of outer wall remained. I'd put up an new knee wall, but it wall all be conditioned space, with just some storage behind knee wall.
So this is what it looked when I started:
And after some demo:
I knew I'd run into some issues with it being built in 1900 but wow, nothing straight, boards everywhere, stuff over top of stuff, gaps and holes... Anyway one issue I found which explains partly why heat has trouble getting up there... when the refinished the main level they studded up and built a new ceiling under the old plaster ceiling. And they insulated it. I don't think there is any easy way to get out all that insulation. Hopefully a couple through floor registers and the one open doorway to the addition on the gable end will bring enough heat.
For example:
Blue line represents where the new floor for the upstairs will go. Between blue and red line are the original beams of the home, with a plaster and lath ceiling attached under the red line. Then the green line is the new drywall ceiling they put up, and there is fb batts between the red and green lines, and they go as far as I can see.
Also to make air sealing harder...
Here is the one gable end the adjoins the 1990 2-story addition (the plastic bags taped up is the doorway to the second story hallway). It looks like when they did the addition they left everything there including most of the original wood siding. I could just about slide my hand between the old wood siding and the newly studded walls. Where its missing you can see the back of the drywall from the opposite side of wall. It will be hard but I can try and air seal between them, but the issue is this gap goes down into the main level, and well that's all finished and not much I can do about it. I would imagine if air can get in that cavity anywhere, its free to circulate around the entire end of the house there, which is an interior wall now so that cold air is infiltrating right in the middle of the house. I can confirm in the basement under this wall there is often a strong breeze blowing down from within the wall, and there is at least one stud bay I've noticed on the inside where an IR gun shows that stud bay 10-15F cooler than the surrounding wall. I think its pretty hopeless to air seal this.
More problems...
Right above that doorway at the one gable end take a look at this. A tad bit of fire damage. The ridge beam (is that the proper term?) is severed 2 foot from the end, as well as several purlins (though the purlins look cut, like maybe there was a chimney up through this end?
The metal roof was new in '07, a year before I moved in. So they obviously knew of it and just slapped a new roof on over top. I'm not sure if this is something critical, I didn't really want to get into a massive repair, I allocated about $2k for insulation and refinishing these rooms, doing all the work myself. Maybe I can just clean it up a bit and insulate it and continue on.
Funny thing though, before I had actually got to that point and just started the demolition and the neighbor (previous owner) came over to see what I was up to. They said they had 2 or 3 chimney fires years ago, though she mentioned it was from the other chimney which is in the next room over.
Now that I have most of the demo and clean up done and I'm really studying the structure, I see some other potential issues. For one, the roof trusses are not all equidistant. I mean I bought several rolls of 24" wide R-13 batts. I measured a couple before I bought, but now they are all exposed and I measured them all. The distance between the roof rafters are: 19.5", 20.5", 21", 20", 24", 20", 18.5" and 22.75", on the currently exposed ones. And they aren’t straight, measuring 1-2" different in width from the top to the bottom. Also the size of the rafters seem to taper, most at the bottom are around 3.5" tall while at the top 2.75". I've never put down insulation before is this a big deal can I stuff R13 in there still? My other thought was since I was going to put down a very thin foil faced EPS sheet first, and a thick layer of EPS on top of everything (right under drywall) when its done, maybe I should just use EPS all the way through. Will be a lot of cutting to shape though. But I plan on spay foam sealing all the edges (between foam board and trusses), so it doesn't have to be an exact fit. problem I see with all rigid foam board is the tapering of the rafters, 3.5" thick of EPS will be flush at near the sides of the roof but at the peak the EPS will protrude 3/4" from the rafter. I suppose that would still be ok though?
But now I'm wondering if I should be ripping all the roof off and putting up new 2x6's and sheathing or something like that. Which would be beyond my ability and more than I was going to spend for sure! Unless maybe I can put up some new boards from underneath without taking the whole roof off or something like that.
At least its a good time of year to have half the house torn up and air leaking right in. I am somewhat flexible on time, I can live without 2 bedrooms and already moved my son to a downstairs room, but the laundry room will be missed. Can always run a garden hose and extension cord to the washmachine outside lol.
If anyone has any advice I'm all ears.
So this is what it looked when I started:
And after some demo:
I knew I'd run into some issues with it being built in 1900 but wow, nothing straight, boards everywhere, stuff over top of stuff, gaps and holes... Anyway one issue I found which explains partly why heat has trouble getting up there... when the refinished the main level they studded up and built a new ceiling under the old plaster ceiling. And they insulated it. I don't think there is any easy way to get out all that insulation. Hopefully a couple through floor registers and the one open doorway to the addition on the gable end will bring enough heat.
For example:
Blue line represents where the new floor for the upstairs will go. Between blue and red line are the original beams of the home, with a plaster and lath ceiling attached under the red line. Then the green line is the new drywall ceiling they put up, and there is fb batts between the red and green lines, and they go as far as I can see.
Also to make air sealing harder...
Here is the one gable end the adjoins the 1990 2-story addition (the plastic bags taped up is the doorway to the second story hallway). It looks like when they did the addition they left everything there including most of the original wood siding. I could just about slide my hand between the old wood siding and the newly studded walls. Where its missing you can see the back of the drywall from the opposite side of wall. It will be hard but I can try and air seal between them, but the issue is this gap goes down into the main level, and well that's all finished and not much I can do about it. I would imagine if air can get in that cavity anywhere, its free to circulate around the entire end of the house there, which is an interior wall now so that cold air is infiltrating right in the middle of the house. I can confirm in the basement under this wall there is often a strong breeze blowing down from within the wall, and there is at least one stud bay I've noticed on the inside where an IR gun shows that stud bay 10-15F cooler than the surrounding wall. I think its pretty hopeless to air seal this.
More problems...
Right above that doorway at the one gable end take a look at this. A tad bit of fire damage. The ridge beam (is that the proper term?) is severed 2 foot from the end, as well as several purlins (though the purlins look cut, like maybe there was a chimney up through this end?
The metal roof was new in '07, a year before I moved in. So they obviously knew of it and just slapped a new roof on over top. I'm not sure if this is something critical, I didn't really want to get into a massive repair, I allocated about $2k for insulation and refinishing these rooms, doing all the work myself. Maybe I can just clean it up a bit and insulate it and continue on.
Funny thing though, before I had actually got to that point and just started the demolition and the neighbor (previous owner) came over to see what I was up to. They said they had 2 or 3 chimney fires years ago, though she mentioned it was from the other chimney which is in the next room over.
Now that I have most of the demo and clean up done and I'm really studying the structure, I see some other potential issues. For one, the roof trusses are not all equidistant. I mean I bought several rolls of 24" wide R-13 batts. I measured a couple before I bought, but now they are all exposed and I measured them all. The distance between the roof rafters are: 19.5", 20.5", 21", 20", 24", 20", 18.5" and 22.75", on the currently exposed ones. And they aren’t straight, measuring 1-2" different in width from the top to the bottom. Also the size of the rafters seem to taper, most at the bottom are around 3.5" tall while at the top 2.75". I've never put down insulation before is this a big deal can I stuff R13 in there still? My other thought was since I was going to put down a very thin foil faced EPS sheet first, and a thick layer of EPS on top of everything (right under drywall) when its done, maybe I should just use EPS all the way through. Will be a lot of cutting to shape though. But I plan on spay foam sealing all the edges (between foam board and trusses), so it doesn't have to be an exact fit. problem I see with all rigid foam board is the tapering of the rafters, 3.5" thick of EPS will be flush at near the sides of the roof but at the peak the EPS will protrude 3/4" from the rafter. I suppose that would still be ok though?
But now I'm wondering if I should be ripping all the roof off and putting up new 2x6's and sheathing or something like that.
Which would be beyond my ability and more than I was going to spend for sure! Unless maybe I can put up some new boards from underneath without taking the whole roof off or something like that.At least its a good time of year to have half the house torn up and air leaking right in. I am somewhat flexible on time, I can live without 2 bedrooms and already moved my son to a downstairs room, but the laundry room will be missed. Can always run a garden hose and extension cord to the washmachine outside lol.
If anyone has any advice I'm all ears.
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Don't want to sink that kind of money into this place. Another fellow said he would even mess with it, that I'd probably have to rebuild the entire floor since the timbers are in such bad shape and supported all over with steel post jacks. He suggested I build a footer inboard a couple feet, with a few layers of block up to the height of the original foundation, back fill with gravel and draining pipe to the sump pump, then cap it off with cement. Might be hard to explain in writing. But if I had to do a new foundation, and a new roof, I think I'd just tear down this place! I'd be better off with new construction in the long run, but I plan on getting out of this place as soon as I can. No way I could tear it down and rebuild and get back what I put into it. I should have just left the old uninsulated plaster walled upstairs alone. 
Was just trying to make it and the laundry room less of an eye sore to sell it, as well as add some insulation in for the next couple/few winters that I own it.
