looking for insulation advice....mods please move to correct area.

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green wood

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Aug 8, 2017
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pa
I tried to post this somewhere where i thought it should be and it said i wasnt allowed....so.

i own a cape code built in1996. Im currently running two stoves, harmon in the basement and a quadrafire in the living room...house is small. 24wide by 36 long so not a huge home., 2 x 6 walls. I tried heating the home with just the larger stove in the basement, since its a small home....the upstairs bedroom i like cool so any radiant heat is fine. the first floor and basement is where we spend our time mostly....I even built an elaborate mechanism to transer heat to the upstairs. didnt work...so now..running two stoves, one on low in the basement p68 and the smaller stove on medium its working so so...if your a person that wants the house 69 70 71 u would not be happy...but i dont like a super warm home either. The issue is its a an issue even keeping it at the 65 to 68 level in the cold cold days. 25-30 degrees....its fine.

so my question is what is the best way to go about testing my home for heat loss and what insulation advice can people share. My house is vinly sided.....it is not wrapped like so many homes of that decade were.

My wife swears we live on a ice cap. This house just has never held heat very well. Example, after multiple days of frigid temps...it took the house days to get to 67 68 degrees max. One night close to zero and when we woke....it was 61 in the house. to me thats a huge drop. Im running the harmon on room temp and the quadra on med stove temp....its blowing heat pretty good. This house just doesnt hold it in. Not sure if wrapping the house or blowing more insulation into attic is the answer. If the home was older i would say the insulation.was shot or flat...ect.
 
green wood said:
I tried to post this somewhere where i thought it should be and it said i wasnt allowed....so.

i own a cape code built in1996. Im currently running two stoves, harmon in the basement and a quadrafire in the living room...house is small. 24wide by 36 long so not a huge home., 2 x 6 walls. I tried heating the home with just the larger stove in the basement, since its a small home....the upstairs bedroom i like cool so any radiant heat is fine. the first floor and basement is where we spend our time mostly....I even built an elaborate mechanism to transer heat to the upstairs. didnt work...so now..running two stoves, one on low in the basement p68 and the smaller stove on medium its working so so...if your a person that wants the house 69 70 71 u would not be happy...but i dont like a super warm home either. The issue is its a an issue even keeping it at the 65 to 68 level in the cold cold days. 25-30 degrees....its fine.

so my question is what is the best way to go about testing my home for heat loss and what insulation advice can people share. My house is vinly sided.....it is not wrapped like so many homes of that decade were.

My wife swears we live on a ice cap. This house just has never held heat very well. Example, after multiple days of frigid temps...it took the house days to get to 67 68 degrees max. One night close to zero and when we woke....it was 61 in the house. to me thats a huge drop. Im running the harmon on room temp and the quadra on med stove temp....its blowing heat pretty good. This house just doesnt hold it in. Not sure if wrapping the house or blowing more insulation into attic is the answer. If the home was older i would say the insulation.was shot or flat...ect.
Click to expand...


Attic is where you are going to get the most bang for your buck for cold weather insulation, I have R-60 in mine. Also look for air infiltration, around windows and doors. You can have insulation companies, (some for free if you have them do the work), come in with a thermal imaging camera that will show you the cold spots.
 
Most states have some kind of efficiency programs. Which would start with a proper assessment and testing to see exactly where the heat is going. Then usually some follow up assistance for improvements. Sure sounds like that is needed here - energy audit item #1.
 
Definding on how the house is set up I would suggest:
1) airseal around light fixtures and whatnot in the ceiling with great stuff foam
2) once relatively tight, add insulation up top. you want more than R30 total. Blowing it in is easy. I rolled mine in, it was easier to do bit by bit as i had time. Also made it easier to still have storage.
3) use great stuff foam to seal rim joints in basement.

those 3 made a big difference, and were pretty cheap and easy to do. I looked into walls, way too much money here in PA. If you have to put new siding on, do it then.
 
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Thank you all for your replies. I believe a cape cod is a tougher home to heat or keep heat in because of the layout, especially upstairs. I have access rooms on each side of the upstairs bedrooms. One side contains the air handler for the AC/heat pump unit so a lil tricky to get around that set up. I may try blowing some in this spring. Not sure if the blown in insul has the same r value as say the traditional lay down type.

The windows are double payned andersons....ive caulked around the door ways as well. I remember when i first purchased the home in 99 the basement was unfinished and i had added a small pellot stove downstairs. There was insulation cut to fit in to the cavities above the block that meet the band board of the house foundations. Those cavities were frost covered in the winter months, If you walked around the upstairs room above the basement....u could feel how could that area was. I tore all the insul out and caulked with right stuff foam every cavity. Lotsa work....put the insul back in and then proceded to foam board the basment walls, and stud them. Drywalled the ceiling , finishing off that room as a man cave. Im curious as to why that area was so cold. Was it because the home was not wrapped? Another example is if your in the attic and look at the ends, north and south of the home. All that is there is blue board, No ply wood on the ends...just foam board with siding on the other side. Not sure if thats code or a way to save money? Seems odd to me.
 
Cape Cods are the hands down worst design for air leakage....they take a knowledgable installer to fix, esp around the kneewalls.

A 1996 house probably has decent insulation...and much of it is being bypassed by epic air leaks built into the framing.

Solution: Easy, get an energy audit. They'll be about $500 and include a blower door test and IR, and give you a report that will list different options for fixing and projected costs and payback periods for each option.

PA does not subsidize the energy improvement work like some states do (using fees on electricity bills). Years ago they used to offer 0% 10 year loans...I got one of those. I don't think that program is funded currently. Your work would be out of pocket or DIY.

But the energy audit is the best way to start.
 
I agree with @woodgeek that an audit is the best way to go. I paid $300 for one and it was well worth. It really helps prioritize what you need to do. You may be make significant improvements by only addressing several leaks. Some may even be cheap to deal with.
If you don't want to shell our the money though you should consider borrowing a thermal camera and looking for major heat leaks yourself. This cold weather is great for that. I've heard that some fire departments will loan them out.
 
Seek and flir make cameras that are reasonably priced now that work with smartphones. I've paid for the cost of the camera many times over in energy savings, takes out the guess work. When we upgraded to a epa certified woodfurnace, we couldn't keep the house at 68 degrees in 25 degree weather. After discovering 32 open cavities in the attic, multiple leaks in the basement, and adding around 50 bales of insulation it made a world of difference. We recently had temps at -10F with chills greater than -20 and we kept the house at 70 overnight with the woodfurnace. I was always told our home was tight by my father, boy was he wrong! An energy audit will most definately tell you what's going on, it was an eye opener for us.
 
Snow on the roof does a decent job of telling you where your insulation needs help.

Other than that, air sealing is the ticket to stopping those leaks. I'd do 1 room at a time.
 
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green wood said:
Another example is if your in the attic and look at the ends, north and south of the home. All that is there is blue board, No ply wood on the ends...just foam board with siding on the other side. Not sure if that's code or a way to save money? Seems odd to me.
Click to expand...

I had a small vacation house built in the Pocono PA area in the early 90's. Wall insulation standards would have required 2x6, but my builder used 2x4 with a 1" foam board sheathing, then covered that with T-111. I was not impressed, but the numbers seemed to add up at the time. When I go there in the winter I'm shocked how cold those walls feel. Come to think of it, I don't think that house is wrapped either.

My point was to mention the foam board used under the T-111 sheathing is what you may be seeing. I don't think the foam board alone is permitted in place of sheathing, but I'm speaking as a layman.
 
green wood said:
Another example is if your in the attic and look at the ends, north and south of the home. All that is there is blue board, No ply wood on the ends...just foam board with siding on the other side. Not sure if thats code or a way to save money? Seems odd to me.
Click to expand...

The sheathing is there to provide resistance to shear and racking from wind loads. Technically, you do not need all the walls to be sheathed....in AZ (not hurricane country) I think they put plywood on about half the outside wall area....the rest is just tyvek with furring strips for the siding!

In your case, the gables are triangular and thus naturally resistant to shear/racking, so the plywood is completely superfluous structurally.

But then, I am not a MechE.
 
I've done quite a bit of air sealing in our 40 year old home. I would echo what maverick06 said and start with tackling the stack effect. Sounds like you've done the right thing in the basement (taking care of the sills which can be a big air leak). I would now go after your attic.

For us, we had 40+ can lights in our ceiling which were not air sealed. That's essentially the equivalent of punching 40+ holes in our ceiling which allows the heat to pour into the attic. This was confirmed by some pretty large ice dams in the winter. However, the best indicator was looking at the roof after a good frost and seeing the melting that was occurring. With a properly sealed and insulated attic, the frost should not freely melt from your roof (at least not until the sun is high enough in the sky to warm the shingles).

We ended up hiring someone to air seal and add insulation to our attic. In addition, I replaced about half of the cans with newer LED retrofits which are air tight. Made a huge difference in our ability to retain heat.

Good luck!
 
woodgeek said:
The sheathing is there to provide resistance to shear and racking from wind loads. Technically, you do not need all the walls to be sheathed....in AZ (not hurricane country) I think they put plywood on about half the outside wall area....the rest is just tyvek with furring strips for the siding!

In your case, the gables are triangular and thus naturally resistant to shear/racking, so the plywood is completely superfluous structurally.

But then, I am not a MechE.
Click to expand...
In many cases structural sheathing is only done on the corners, as it is on our house, to fulfill anti-racking requirements. This used to be done also by installing diagonal dimensional lumber at corners which was 'let in" to the studs to lie flush. The areas other than the corners on our house are 'sheathed' with polyiso foam board which provides about R 3 thermal insulation.
 
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