Just replaced a 3′ by 5′ window over the kitchen sink. The new window is a little shorter than the old, so I re-framed the sill stud and raised it 6″. This left 3 small stud bays under the window that I wanted to insulate. I used the batting out of an ugly pillow the wife hates but didn’t want to get rid of. Looks like it will work as well as fiberglass. Any other improvised insulation materials come to mind? How would crumpled newspaper work in comparison? Just curious.
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Both of those insulations may hold moisture and have little insulating value.
Why improvise? 3 cans of Great Stuff would provide all the insulation you'd need in that spot for $20 tops. Improvising with the wrong materials is asking for trouble.
did
If the pillow batting is either the polyester fiber or cotton it should work OK. I slight fire hazard as they may not be flame retardant but covered with with drywall and considering small area involved I wouldn't worry too much. I have seen far worse.
Newspaper has a long history of being used as insulation. The cellulose insulation that is blown into walls and attics is largely recycled newsprint. It is finely shredded and is treated with a mix of chemicals to make it resistant to fire and , they say, moisture.
An old hobo trick is to wrap sheets of newspaper around their body and limbs under their jacket. Newsprint is a good insulator. Boy scouts used to make low cost sleeping bags by stitching together a sleeve with canvas and then plastic underneath and layers of newspaper for insulation.The newsprint being even more effective if you alternate crumpled and uncrumpled sheets and overlay all joints. The more layers you add the warmer the bag. The weak point is moisture. As long as the paper stays dry it is strong. Once wetted the paper becomes ineffective.
Poor folks used to paper the inside of their houses with newsprint. Gave the kids something to read and kept the worse of the drafts out. O have wired a few places where the newsprint, now painted over, was still evident.
You can make a handy insulating unit out of sticks of wood assembled to make a box. The outside is then covered with newsprint. Old timers would use simple flout paste for glue. If square stock was used for the frame both the inside and out could be covered giving you a dead air apace that makes the assembly more effective.
These units are quick to make and if painted can last for a couple of seasons.
If newsprint is shellacked more light gets through. These made handy and cheap 'windows' for the poor. Not too long ago window glass wasn't cheap. Interesting enough shellacked newsprint is actually a better insulator than glass.
spray foam is the only way to go, easy, cheap and quick
spray it in, wait, trim off excess and refinish
I don't know. Seems to me spray foam, as I understand it, has some issues that keep it from be the perfect insulating product:It isn't cheap. Between the need to hire someone (More on this later.) and the cost of the material it is expensive compared to other products. Now the common argument is to point to what you get for the money. Fair enough except that most people in the US don't need a huge amount of insulation to get a large effect. Not too long ago most houses in the nation, might be different in ND or Main, were uninsulated. In many area simple, and cheap fiberglass or cellulose works just fine.You could argue that long term the foam pays itself off and, eventually, saves money. That's great if you can afford to jump for the price up front. Many people faced with the choice of a slightly less efficient house or one they can't afford to build chose the former. Second it is not a DIY project. To insulate a house with spray foam you pretty much have to hire a contractor and pay what he chooses to charge. Just about anyone can install fiberglass batts or blow in cellulose. And do it on weekends a bit at a time if need be. You can even get the kids involved. Having junior chasing his sister around with a spray foam gun could get ugly.Third the materials in spray foam are not renewable or recyclable. Or, because of the chemical industry, energy load and oil and/or natural gas connection, cheap. Fiberglass is sand. Pretty high energy involvement but sand is cheap and nothing like scarce. Mineral wool is recycled slag produced during steel production and can be co-produced with steel sharing the same energy input. Cellulose is recycled newsprint. Cheap, recycled and recyclable. Then there is fire. Spray foam, despite being treated with potentially toxic retardants in some cases, will still burn and contribute to flame spread, smoke and toxic fumes. It is supposed to be behind a barrier such as drywall but 1/2" drywall has a limited ability to protect it. Once the drywall fails your back to square one.
Flammable foam exposed to fire.Then there are the vapor barrier issues. Foam doesn't breath. This is touted as a good thing. And it can be if it only stops air, as opposed to moisture, movement. Rot isn't caused by condensation or leaks. If it was every bit of exposed wood would rot away in a few weeks. Except it doesn't. Even rot prone wood can survive a long time outside. I have a simple square of unfinished CDX plywood laying horizontal as a feeding platform for birds. It has been there for years and while the edges have decayed a bit the majority is sound. Reason is because while it is exposed to a lot of water and abuse it dries out rapidly and stays dry most of the time. The water is not trapped against the wood. Water trapped inside a structure and unable to get out fast enough for the space to dry causes rot. Problem with spray foam is that it can easily form a second vapor barrier. Any substantial gap between an existing vapor barrier and the foam can allow moisture to collect. It is also possible to have the same situation between exterior sheet goods or, at least in theory, the foam itself where a gap in the middle of the foam allows small amounts of air in and cross the dew point.Both fiberglass ans cellulose breath. The number and placement of vapor barriers can be controlled so there is only one and it is on the warm/wet side. A lot of houses with fiberglass or cellulose have rot or mould but it is not a failure of the insulation but a misunderstanding of where and how to install vapor barriers. Sometimes no barrier is best of all options. None of this is to say spray foam isn't good. It is here to stay. But that is not the same thing as saying that it is the be-all and end-all of insulation for all structures in all locations. As with any product it has to be carefully applied with an idea of limiting its liabilities while making the most of its strengths.
sorry to reply i such a negative way, but;
the area to be insulated was extremely small
anything would be better than nothing
the insulation is expensive but waterproof and draft tight
okay so no way i'd insulate an entire room with it, but 3 small stud bays?
i use this stuff everyday, carefully and responibly, and have been for 15 or more yeaRS
I really wasn't responding so much to you personally. It hadn't occurred to me you were being negative.Rather I was reacting to the recent press and gushing enthusiasm on the subject I see and read nearly everywhere. My response is possibly an artifact left over from overexposure to the forced and excessive happiness and joy of the holidays. It'll be mid-January before that recedes completely.Much of the press the various spray foams are getting is little more than an endless and completely uncritical repeating of the manufacturers advertising copy. The more I see of it the more I think people need to get a grip. The stuff is good in its place but it isn't the second coming. It is not going to save the world and it is not without issues.
i'm afraid you need to do more homework. many items you mention are half truths.... 1. Many foams are made with Bio-based soy bean oil. This is a renewable American resource. 2. Open cell foam breaths. The perm rating is ~20. Closed cell foam is perm rating of ~1 and does not breath.3. All foams must have a fire rating <20 and smoke rating <450.4. Poor insulation in the past is no excuse to waste resources forever.5. Fiberglass is a cancer causing agent. Don't have the kids help (at least if they breath).6. I don't follow your whole 'rot' argument.Of course I sell foam so don't believe me, research it yourselves.Thanks,
Stu
1) " Many foams are made with Bio-based soy bean oil. This is a renewable American resource."And yet the vast majority of foam applications going in, so far, are not bio-based they remain children of a fossil fuel based chemical industry. It would be a fair claim if most foam was bio-based. 2. "Open cell foam breaths. The perm rating is ~20. Closed cell foam is perm rating of ~1 and does not breath."The vast majority of the foams being applied are closed-cell. Open cell foams are rarely seen. Again you cite a tiny subset of the total to excuse the majority.3. "All foams must have a fire rating <20 and smoke rating <450."Those tests are a comparison against select grade red oak flooring. The flooring being assigned a value of 100. So a flame spread of <20 is a fifth as fast as the red oak. Which means it still burns fairly well. Also with such wide areas of material potentially involved ignition could easily be at many points so involvement is likely to be much more rapid and complete. The smoke rating of <450 isn't anything to brag about seeing as that it amounts to four and a half times as much smoke as red oak. 4. "Poor insulation in the past is no excuse to waste resources forever."Failure to use foam is not the same as wasting resources. There are viable alternatives. Cellulose is effective and recycled.5. "Fiberglass is a cancer causing agent. Don't have the kids help (at least if they breath)."At the risk of seeming to defend fiberglass when I lean more toward cellulose I offer this bit:The supposed cancer link was wild speculation un based on actual facts. Asbestos requiring a HEPA grade filter and, sometimes, a positive pressure mask. Fiberglass is still, after much study, largely considered 'nuisance dust'. Which is why $.50 dust masks are still considered adequate. Tip: Get the ones with an exhaust valve as they are much more comfortable. Asbestos effects on the lungs was well known within a few decades of its widespread use. Fiberglass has been widely used for over 60 years and the majority of people who have the worse exposures don't seem to have a greatly increased rate of lung cancer. My take on the history of the controversy:Fiberglass similarity to asbestos was enough to cause concern. Largely based on this alone and with an eye toward the potentially wide risk what amounted to a warning to get people to limit their exposure was made:1994- NTP listed fiberglass as "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen" based on animal data. The studies went back and forth trying to find a link. Huge exposures in animals cause it to look worse while later analysis of these same studies showed the methods to be unrealistic. When the testing was limited to realistic exposures the links disappeared. Actual tracking of those exposed was the major mover when no substantial link could be found. So:2000- The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) reported that epidemiological studies of glass fiber manufacturing workers indicate "glass fibers do not appear to increase the risk of respiratory system cancer". The NAS supported the exposure limit of 1.0 f/cc that has been the industry2001- The IARC working group revised their previous classification of glass wool being a possible carcinogen. It is currently considered not classifiable as a human carcinogen. Studies done in the past 15 years since the previous report was released, do not provide enough evidence to link this material to any cancer risk. From:
http://www.lungusa.org/site/apps/s/content.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=34706&ct=67138Nothing in science is set in stone. So far the wild speculation based on similar physical profiles with asbestos have proved to be untrue. The 'worse than asbestos' claims pretty much fell through. They are still alive and well in blogs and conspiracy and 'the sky is falling' sites but science has pretty much discounted the worse and middling case. This is not to say that glass fibers inhaled are doing you any good. They are irritating to skin and lungs. And there may be still some small link to long term harm but it seems to be pretty small if it exists at all. Risks have to be seen in context and with some sense of proportion. In the end everyone dies. Life is fatal. No one gets out of here alive.
I used some free to me Fiberglass and foil duct boards in my roof plane ( pole rafters on odd ball spacings) at r4.3 per inch and pretty easy to work with, it did well. I then added 4" of either pink dow foam or when that ran out, polyisocyanurate. Then added foil/bubble/foil tek wrap, strapping, 3/4 foam between , then sheet fock
It definatly was a process, not an event.!!!!
For awkward spaces, I use bits of foam board, and gun foam them in place.
Foam board is cheaper by volume than gun foam, plus I always seem to have plenty of scraps handy.
Another eco-friendly trick is to reuse rigid packing foam, and gun that into place. Often you get dome nice regular pieces to work with.