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Been subscribed to Fine Homebuilding for almost 10 years now and both enjoy and rely on the information greatly for my construction and renovation projects. I am not a professional builder, although I did take a year off work to build a home on spec successfully about seven years ago. I hope someone can help me with my current situation. Never tried this online chat discussion group, but have been impressed with how friendly and helpful people have been with people’s requests for help. Here is my situation as short and clear as possible:
We have an old (post war) veteran’s one and a half [2X4 stick] which desperately needs more insulation and we’re not big on the look of the outside We live near Ottawa (Ontario, Canada), so winter’s a bit of a … well … you can imagine!
I am looking to insulate and redo the exterior at the same time and was strongly considering horizontal bracing + reframing window openings + extruded polystyrene rigid insulation + house wrap or tar paper + stained cedar board & batten (or maybe Tongue & groove). I have had decent success with Behr stain products.
I’m leaving out some details here, but my fear is that I am omitting something major (likely). I’ve had one friend tell me to make sure I actually seal all edges and seams of the insulation or not bother at all insulating. I’m OK with that concept in general. I’ve had a contractor tell me it is better tearing off the entire existing stucco exterior (it’s made to look like brick) and start from scratch. Sounded the way he said it that he never re-layed anything on an old exterior before, so I am not 100% confident about his advice. Lastly, I was told that I should make sure the house can still “breathe”. Now that puzzles me a bit, given I doubt I will be automatically creating an R2000 home with my approach. Although I am sensitive to air circulation and quality and have no problem considering adding an air exchanger if this was worthwhile.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated by you folks.
Best Regards,
JM Dupont
Replies
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Been subscribed to Fine Homebuilding for almost 10 years now and both enjoy and rely on the information greatly for my construction and renovation projects. I am not a professional builder, although I did take a year off work to build a home on spec successfully about seven years ago. I hope someone can help me with my current situation. Never tried this online chat discussion group, but have been impressed with how friendly and helpful people have been with people's requests for help. Here is my situation as short and clear as possible:
We have an old (post war) veteran's one and a half [2X4 stick] which desperately needs more insulation and we're not big on the look of the outside We live near Ottawa (Ontario, Canada), so winter's a bit of a ... well ... you can imagine!
I am looking to insulate and redo the exterior at the same time and was strongly considering horizontal bracing + reframing window openings + extruded polystyrene rigid insulation + house wrap or tar paper + stained cedar board & batten (or maybe Tongue & groove). I have had decent success with Behr stain products.
I'm leaving out some details here, but my fear is that I am omitting something major (likely). I've had one friend tell me to make sure I actually seal all edges and seams of the insulation or not bother at all insulating. I'm OK with that concept in general. I've had a contractor tell me it is better tearing off the entire existing stucco exterior (it's made to look like brick) and start from scratch. Sounded the way he said it that he never re-layed anything on an old exterior before, so I am not 100% confident about his advice. Lastly, I was told that I should make sure the house can still "breathe". Now that puzzles me a bit, given I doubt I will be automatically creating an R2000 home with my approach. Although I am sensitive to air circulation and quality and have no problem considering adding an air exchanger if this was worthwhile.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated by you folks.
Best Regards,
JM Dupont