Historic Renovation Energy Inefficency
I have recently started to remodel a small shotgun shack, built around 1930, in Birmingham, Alabama. The project at first seemed very appealling because of the social aspects, but I have recently been scratching my head over some building and engineering problems. If anyone has any thing to say (other than “tear it down and build it gound up”), i’d love to hear your advice.
Instead of lathboards, every interior wall surface has been faced with true 1×6 running parallel to the floor. Drywall was installed on top of the 1×6, but that has been removed by the homeowner. The 1×6 walls are reminiceint of a log cabin look, but there are obvious technical difficulties.
1. The idea is to de-nail and sand the 1×6 surface, (not as labor intensive as I had originally thought) and finish it with some type of oil (or non-glossy eurethane.) What oil or eurethane product would be cost effective enough to cover the 1000+ sqft of the 1×6?
2. The 1×6 were installed so that the gaps between them vay from 1/32″ to 1″ with 3/8″ being the average. Two areas this poses problems:
1. The bathroom. Is it imperitave to make the bathroom airtight? We installed an exhuast fan, but should we make the walls air, or moisture tight?
2. The transition from interior to exterior wall space. Currently the walls consist of the 1×6, studs, and exterior siding, excluding insulation, any vapor barrier, or wall sheathing. The current plan is to reside the house, and from the back of the 1×6 the materials will be: wrapped insulation, 3/4″ osb, tyvek, and siding. Should i include more vabor barrier or insulation layers?
Thanks for reading, and would welome any advice.
andrew spear
Replies
Greetings Andrew,
As a first time poster Welcome to Breaktime.
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again.
Perhaps it will catch someone's attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
damn, am I fat!
Andrew:Just to be sure I follow, the 1x6 boards are now the true permanent interior surface of the walls, and they have uneven gaps. Do the gaps just go in to the wall cavity, or is there something underneath?Anyway, as the owner of a log cabin from the 30s, I probably face similar issues. We have the bathroom as installed when REMC electricity first permitted indoor plumbing. The room is by no means airtight. It could use a fan, though, but there is no practical way to install one. Instead, we crack the window. Imperfect, but for the week or two at a time that we stay there, it works.I suggest you look at the websites and catalogues for log cabin supply houses. I have had good luck with one in Grand Rapids Minnesota called Schroeder Log Home Supply, and there are others. They have a wide variety of coatings and fillers that might meet your need. For example, if you decide to seal the bathroom walls, you might use a flexible log chinking in a pleasing color. It would be a pretty easy job, and the stuff is waterproof and fairly tough. There are also coatings that protect without spoiling the effect of the rough wood.Joe
We thought about chinking and all the different spin-offs (caulk, etc.), but there were so many linear feet in the house that it seemed like there should be another solution.
our current plan is to leave the cracks there, and when we re-side the house put several layers of house wrap, insulation, etc to provied an adequate weather proof layer.
I was really just thinking about sealing the bathroom to keep humidity out of the wall cavity and to control odor.
Just as an aside -- as a guy who has lived with them, cracks can be a major league pain to clean...
I am a bit hesitant to reply because our climate conditions are so different and I don't know where in the wall section a vapor barrier is recommended for your climate.
But I will risk it anyway. ;-)
I have had to work on several projects that were either finished walls of 1x6 cedar or fir boards, no tongue and groove, no ship lap. Knowing that we were not going to get permanent tight joints at the horizontal seams this is what we did.
Insulated the walls with unfaced fiberglass or Kraft face fiberglass then over that stapled 15 lb. builders felt (if it came with lines on one face we faced the lines toward the insulation) or used black builders paper instead of felt. We then applied the boards, trying to keep gaps to an absolute minimum and where we had different widths working our way around the room with uniform widths before starting the next course. A good hand plane or power planer comes in handy for the fitting.
Now when the boards shrink or didn't fit perfectly all that was visible is a dark black background thru the opening.
Another technique is to apply drywall to the studs and paint it flat black before installing the boards.
Good luck.
Thanks dovetail,
This is pretty close to the plan we have. The 1x6 are already installed, and we aren't going to take the luxury of taking them off, and then re-installing. For insulating purposes we are going to work from the back of the 1x6 towards the exterior of the house.
What sized hand planes do you use, by the way? I just got into using a jointer planner. Very fun.
couple of thoughts -
if I understand correctly, you will be exposing the stud cavities from the outside -
how about fitting some foam board insulation between each stud affixed to the 1X6? - in the past I've used foil faced (isocyanate?) board that was black on one side from the factory - that would seal up your cracks between the 1X6 from the inside to the stud cavity and furnish a vapor barrier - I'd pass on the fiberglass - and the tyvek - let the wall breath a bit -
decide how well you like your cleaned up (I like scrub brushes and soapy water) 1X6's (stain or color is a possibility after cleaning) and consider painting/spraying boiled linseed oil as your finish - slop on generously, wipe down any wet spots an hour or two later, in a couple of days you have a nice mellow surface that resists moisture and is easily refreshed at some point in the future -
"there's enough for everyone"
I like your solution.
oh, and boiled linseed oil is cheap too....
"there's enough for everyone"
Andrew,
Sorry , I had to go back and re-read your OP. I misread and thought you had taken the 1x6 off the wall, now I see that were only de-nailing the sheet rock walls. Leaving them on eliminates what I had offered.
I use a block plane (on rare occasion a jack), or makita power plane, or small jointer (old bench top ).
I lived in an old house in the coast range of Ore, that had unfinished 1x6 walls just as you describe dealing with. Only mine had no studs, just verticle 1x12 with horizantle 1x4 or 1x6, then newspaper for wall paper. Call them board houses up here.
Historic or not, I wouldn't be interested in being a part of wood covered walls as you've described. It's poor carpentry, not truely historic as a finished surface in that house and basically sounds like a bad idea.
I'd offer a client the option of pulling the wood and reinstalling over sheetrock, or I know a young carp who doesn't mind building anything you want, if it makes sense or not.
Happy holidays.
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
I think the main bad idea was actually accepting the job, but that's for another disscussion.
It's an interesting idea; sort of the "flush side" of "camp style" exposed structure.
Now, for gaps, you could consider just fitting in a "dutchman" of sorts over any wall that "seeing through" would be under-good. That's any wall with insulation in it, into any space wanting privacy, etc.
You are planning for some sort of exterior wall insulation, correct? The type/method will "drive" how you want to approach the interior wall finish (luckily, batts are probably right out, as you are not planning on ripping out the 1x6's).
As to finishing the boards, you might look at a "milk paint"-like finish; something that lets you (or future owners) create a color "base" but without fully covering the color/grain of the 1x6s you are trying to retain. Since its rough anyway, you can use about any water-base product you want. It may just take some experimentting with which one you, specifically, want to apply. Which will get to whether you want to use rollers, sprayers, brushes, what have you.
Now, like as not, you need to plan on some sort of sealed surface for the bathroom. We can easily make an argument about controlling indoor moisture; but "user" acceptance will "trump" any sort of logical or scientific argument. Figure that the bathroom will need some sort of clean-able, even traditional, sort of surface, and you're much more likely to be 'ahead' of the curve. Given the age of the building, putting up CBU on the bath walls and floor is probably a real good bet. Mostly it makes it simpler no matter what finish surface goes in.