masonry house insulation techniques
hello all
i am buying a ranch house built in 1951. it has a full basement, with short windows so that it is about 5 ft below grade at basement floor height. the wall construction is simply brick, block, and plaster, consequently there is no wall insulation. i am going to have to figure out a way to keep the heat in this house or the energy bills will break the bank!
the exterior brick is in fine shape, and the house is built without roof overhangs so that if i choose to insulate the walls on the outside i will run into the problem of having to extend the edges of the roof and shingles. i would like, however, to get the mass of the walls working for me, and i guess that outer insulation is the only way to get that to happen.
has anyone run into this problem with a house before ? i was wondering if a guy could glue rigid insulation to the outside of the bricks and then go with the new sythetic and lighter weight stucco( dryvit) that is used on so many commercial buildings now.if i went this way would i stop at 6 inches above the ground or go into the ground with the insulation? don’t ants still like to tunnel into rigid ins?
furring strips and cut nails is another way i have thought of going, again on the outside of the brick, with rigid insulation between the strips. i was thinking maybe one by strips both horizontally and vertically to have fewer gaps and loses and and then i could just side over with hor siding.
of course the other way to go would be to build walls inside and and do the insulating there, and i could also run wires for new outlets and such , but of course some space would be lost inside and the house would not have the benefit of the mass of the walls and the flywheel effect of getting that mass warm .
i would love to hear what people have done with this type of situation before!
thanks …waltzingtom
Replies
Waltztom,
Where are you? If it was me,, I'd probably blow cellulose into the existing
wall cavity, do your fishing of wires first,, if the basement is unfinished,and if you need to! My place is a 1945 victory story and a half,, but has insulation, old paper backed rockwool. You can blow the cellulose from inside or out, both makes tons of holes,,but you will be much warmer! Inside holes, you can foam a dollop, and mud over top, outside, you'll end up with a series of holes in the mortar, and some brick, so will end up with a series of holes, which don't bother me to look at, when you think of the job done, but might bother most. You'll probably have 3 and 3/4 inches of studs or so, and will upgrade from no insulation to 3.5 per inch.
Glueing styro sounds pretty sketchy. I'd think it might fall off.
I built out my eaves from 6" to 16", by making a 2x6 paralellogram ladder which was attached to the existing facia. I also cross strapped with vertical 2x2's and horizontal 1x4's over the whole assembly, and applying a galvalume steel roof, but that was mostly done because I gutted the second floor and insulated and vapor barriered from ridge to wall, creating a "cap" for the whole story and a half house, and gaining storage space behind the knee walls. I really like the look of a house with a proper overhang.
Hope this helps,, I don't post much, so be nice you guys! Cheers!
dave
I had a situation like this last year. Against my advice my buddy bought a block house. It was in sad shape. After we cut off the roof and built a new truss roof we completely gutted everything inside. We then proceeded to frame new walls with 2 1/2 inch steel studs. We put walls around the perimeter on the inside of the block but we moved them in 5 1/2 inches. We filled that space with horizontal batts (r22 fibreglass) then we filled the steel studs with r8 fibreglass. This processs made for a very quiet and cozy warm house this winter. New windows and entire new interior, new wirng and plumbing too. We worked for awhile on tht one but it looks good now.
Have a good day
Cliffy
Whoops! Missed the "block" part before my rant! I guess I'd styro the inside!?
d
Its a horse thing!