How to insulate an old house with no insulation

Adding insulation to the walls of an old house without any other precautions can result is rotting walls full of mold under certain circumstances. In other cases, drilling holes in the walls or removing a couple courses of clapboard to blow insulation into the stud bays may work with no problems. Learn what you need to know in order to properly insulate your attic from the experts at This Old House today.

YES – Your walls have a 3. R-fiberglass batt in them with near certainty. In old houses with plaster walls, there is no vapor barrier under the plaster so the wet air hits the insulation and condensates. This wets down the blown-in insulation making it a wet mass at the bottom of the wall cavity creating an inviting place for termites and dry rot. Our assembly from inside to outside is drywall, studs ( no insulation. yet), felt paper, and wood clapboard.

This answer will vary from old house to old house. As mentione most heat loss is typically through the roof. Since warm air has a tendency to rise and cool air to fall, insulating the attic is the place to start. If the attic is unfinished the insulation should be installed on the floor. It has become apparent we have NO insulation in the walls and loose fill cellulose in the attic.

If you live in a newer house , you can probably get this information from the builder. Thickness must not be used as the sole factor in determining the R-value of loose-fill insulation , particularly for attic insulation. Q: I have removed the interior plaster and lath down to the studs on my 140-year- old house. There is no insulation or sheathing, so what is exposed is the unpainted back of the original pine-clapboard siding.

To learn more about insulation and your old windows, see Your Old Windows. Convection Inside Your Walls: The Heat Conveyor Air infiltration and exfiltration are not, however, the only way convection transfers heat in and out of your house. A 50-year- old house is about to get an overhaul that will include new sheathing, siding and wall insulation. This article explains how to add new insulation to an old house from the outside and re-sheath and side the house , leaving interior walls intact. Take the architectural drawing of the house an without lifting the pencil, draw a single line representing the insulation around the house.

Wherever you lift the pencil would be a discontinuity where outside air could short-circuit the insulation , rendering it useless. The weekend before we moved in, we blew in celulose inulation throughout. It made an unbelievable mess, but when done, it really got the job done.

A year later we insulated the attic. Providing you have no condensation or damp issues and your loft is accessible, this should be a job you can carry out on a DIY basis. Most people choose to insulate using insulation ‘quilts’ made from glass, mineral wool or natural wool — a depth of 270mm should be aimed for. It has no insulation in the walls as far as I can tell.

Before you start taking siding off, go down to the basement and look between the joists along top of foundation and make sure there is no signs of brick. Some experts say a homeowner can save percent of his energy bill by sealing air leaks and adding insulation , but that will vary with the age of the house and its location. Do we cover them with the insulation , insulate around them?

I don’t want to create more problems. I am unsure of how to insulate my old brick house. The second floor and floor of attic have celluose blown-in insulation. It is quite warm upstairs in the winter.

Windows,doors,blocking etc can limit insulation but a fair amount can be blown in from your attic. The house is hard to heat in the winter and becomes very hot in the summer, so we want to add insulation. We have an 80-year- old home with lathe and plaster on the inside walls.

Don’t forget to insulate over the access hatch or put an insulated cover over the stairs. Is it possible to insulate an old house like this. If so, what do you suggest?

How should I go about doing this, and what type of insulation should. An attic or under a roof is the easiest place to add insulation in an old house. Many old houses had some attic insulation , usually cellulose or. Insulate a House Without Taking Down Drywall;. Q: How can I insulate the walls of my double-brick house ? One contractor says he can drill holes in the plaster and blow insulation into the space between the bricks, but another says this won’t work.

No backing on the insulation whatsoever. A radiant barrier would be incredibly beneficial and totally harmless to the structure as far as the heat gain in the summer because of the intense sun that hits Galveston, one of the most intense areas in our country as far as sun hitting down, believe it or not. I’m guessing this would change how to insulate. Would we just put the insulation between the roof. The R-value of the batt measures the thermal resistance, so the higher the R-value, the more effectively the batt insulates.

We are now considering no wall insulation or just a little bit, but nothing touching the siding where there is no sheathing. In most parts of the United States, insulating the exterior edge of a slab can reduce heating bills by to. I live in an old house (1years plus) in Scotland. The property does not have cavity walls, therefore I cannot have cavity wall insulation.

In all other respects the house is well insulated.