While this is likely an obvious statement for all of you experienced folk out there, I'm hoping it might help the less experienced make good choices when spending their hard earned money.
We recently bought an old one-room school house with a 32 x 32 foundation, a block basement, a first floor living space, and a second floor uninsulated attic. The walls are 2x4 construction with R-13 fiberglass batting for insulation and the ceiling cavity between the first floor and attic was stuffed with R-19 fiberglass. We moved in during the early spring and used an insane amount of firewood and electric baseboard heat just to keep the house in the lower 60s. Our electric bills were in the $250+ range, even through the mild spring months and we burned a lot of nicely seasoned wood in the central wood furnace.
Fast forward to this fall after renovating the attic into second floor living space with 2x6 walls, new windows, a vapor/air barrier, and blown cellulose in the walls (R-19) and new attic space (R-60). A few mornings ago, we dropped into the upper 20s, had a hard frost, and woke to a 58 degree indoor temperature. I bounded down the stairs, eager to light the season's first fire in the wood furnace and threw together a top-down fire with two 6-inch splits, two or three 2-inch rounds, and some kindling, all about 18 inches long. 45 minutes later, the house was up to 80 degrees inside! With the fire damped as low as we could take it without smothering it, we got up to 83 and held it all day, though we obviously didn't add any more wood and let the fire die out. After another series of cold nights and frosts, the house never dropped below 68 degrees without any additional heat source, aside from our regular cooking activities and lightbulbs. During the day, it rose to the low 70's despite outdoor temps in the 40s and 50s, again without any dedicated heat source.
Forgetting the cost of the renovations aside from the insulation, and even knocking out the cost of insulating the walls since most houses aren't torn down to bare studs for easy wall access, the best investment we've made in our heating system is the cellulose attic insulation, which we subbed out for $800, including proper vents, prep, and 20 inches of insulation for a final, settled R-value of R-60. Even with the addition of almost 1000 square feet of living space, capping our house with better insulation appears to have dramatically improved our efficiency.
New stove? New furnace? Better insulation up top? The last one gets my vote as long as your heat source is serviceable.
We recently bought an old one-room school house with a 32 x 32 foundation, a block basement, a first floor living space, and a second floor uninsulated attic. The walls are 2x4 construction with R-13 fiberglass batting for insulation and the ceiling cavity between the first floor and attic was stuffed with R-19 fiberglass. We moved in during the early spring and used an insane amount of firewood and electric baseboard heat just to keep the house in the lower 60s. Our electric bills were in the $250+ range, even through the mild spring months and we burned a lot of nicely seasoned wood in the central wood furnace.
Fast forward to this fall after renovating the attic into second floor living space with 2x6 walls, new windows, a vapor/air barrier, and blown cellulose in the walls (R-19) and new attic space (R-60). A few mornings ago, we dropped into the upper 20s, had a hard frost, and woke to a 58 degree indoor temperature. I bounded down the stairs, eager to light the season's first fire in the wood furnace and threw together a top-down fire with two 6-inch splits, two or three 2-inch rounds, and some kindling, all about 18 inches long. 45 minutes later, the house was up to 80 degrees inside! With the fire damped as low as we could take it without smothering it, we got up to 83 and held it all day, though we obviously didn't add any more wood and let the fire die out. After another series of cold nights and frosts, the house never dropped below 68 degrees without any additional heat source, aside from our regular cooking activities and lightbulbs. During the day, it rose to the low 70's despite outdoor temps in the 40s and 50s, again without any dedicated heat source.
Forgetting the cost of the renovations aside from the insulation, and even knocking out the cost of insulating the walls since most houses aren't torn down to bare studs for easy wall access, the best investment we've made in our heating system is the cellulose attic insulation, which we subbed out for $800, including proper vents, prep, and 20 inches of insulation for a final, settled R-value of R-60. Even with the addition of almost 1000 square feet of living space, capping our house with better insulation appears to have dramatically improved our efficiency.
New stove? New furnace? Better insulation up top? The last one gets my vote as long as your heat source is serviceable.
