I just bought a house in colorado. I was looking for land and came across this small house for a good price on a nice lot so decided to get it, do a remodel with addition etc… instead of building new.
Now the house was built in 91 and I want to go through it and eliminate as much air infiltration as I can and put some more insulation in the attic. I lived most of my life in southern california and my last house, built in 64, didn’t even have any insulation and I never cared about air infilitration so I don’t really have any experience with this.
Besides checking the seals on all the doors and windows and blowing in some more insulation in the attic is there anything else I can do to make the house more efficient?
Replies
Basement and attic.
Buy a few cans of foam. Go through the basement (if you have one) and seal any holes in the basement ceiling/first floor platform.
Check out the rim joist and holes in it...sillcocks, exterior outlet boxes, etc. Make sure they're tight.
Basement door. Do you have one? A real door, or a bulkhead/bilco type of door. If just the latter, install a real weathertight door in the foundation wall.
Go in the attic and do the same with the attic floor. If there is insulation up there, look for dirty spots in the insulation. That's almost a sure sign of air movement.
Attic access...scuttle hole? Make a box to fit over the scuttle out of 2" polyisocyanate insulation. Cut the pieces to size, use canned foam as "glue" to tack and seal the pieces together, and use a few wrappings of duct tape to secure everything together.
Fireplace damper?
Dryer vent outlet?
For adding insulation, cellulose does a better job of stopping air flow than FG.
If you really want to go crazy, on a windy day check for air infiltration at the electrical outlet boxes that are in the house's exterior walls. As a band-aid you can buy gaskets that get sammiched between the faceplate and the box.
Just a start, but you're on the right track. Air infilatration can make otherwise comfortable homes very uncomfortable, and expensive to heat.
Thanks for the tips. This should keep me busy for a little while.
If you can find a contractor who specializes in energy conservation hire them to do a blower door and/or duct blast test. A blower door works with negative pressure (50 pascals) to find any and all air leaks in the envelope of the house. Duct blasters use positive pressure to find leaks in you duct work. If thats not feasible then at least check your ducts and seal with a good quality mastic at the joints.