We have an early 1800’s farmhouse built on a rubble foundation with a cement and part gravel basement floor. The basement is very humid (damp) during the Spring and Summer months and very cold during the winter months. The first floor of the house has refinished pumpkin pine flooring the boards of which over the years have shrunk leaving gaps between them. During the Spring and Summer months their is a musty odor that permeates the first floor. During the Winter months there are very cold drafts coming up through the floorboard gaps.
There is no insulation in the basement ceiling and we are considering installing some but are not sure if we should use just plain fiberglass batting or one with a vapor barrier. If one with a vapor barrier which direction should the barrier be installed. Toward the basement or toward the floorboards. Or possibly another type of insulation should be considered.
We currently run a large fan during the summer months to help alleviate the mustiness but with oil prices soaring we would like to do something about the winter drafts.
We have also finally given in and are going to have the exterior of the house resided in vinyl with a 1 1/2 inch insulated board backing. This has not been an easy decision but economics and a five year cycle of repainting seems to have forced our hand.
Tough climate in the Catskill Mountains.
Replies
i found an ad for a do it yourself spray foam insulation kit, their website is FOAMPOWER.COM
i like the idea of spray in foam it will seal and insulate better than anything else.
i also reccomend the book on insulating from the taunton press, the for pros by pros series, i think the authors name is bruce something, i bet someone here will remember and post....... im sorry i dont remember the mans name but i remember what he wrote! good stuff! a must have if you plan on doing any insulating even if you plan on hiring someone else to insulate for you, take the books advice and plug up all the holes etc just like he (?) reccomends!
Thanks for tip on Foampower. Signed on for information very interesting. Would like to hear from someone who may have used it about ease of installation and preparation of old surfaces and effectivness.
Have you thought about sealing foundation floor and walls? That sound like the biggest concern. If it was my house, I would look into foam for the rim joist and sealing the floor from below. If that was to expensive I would look into densepack cellulose. FG does little to stop air movement. www.nuwool.com has a good website. Good luck and keep us posted.
Garett
I have a similar problem - cold air leaks up from the crawl space into the house during cold weather. The floor is always cold, and the air about a foot above the floor is cold. I can feel the cold air coming up the ducts (they're in the crawl space) and around the dishwasher.
After crawling around in the attic and watching the house roof and exterior for the past two winters, I've come to believe that the root problem is that air is escaping out at the top of the house, which of course draws cold air in from the bottom. I never feel the warm air leaking out, but I do see frost on the exterior around windows, at places where the sheathing has gaps, around the eaves, etc when it's around zero out (or below - we've had a cold winter).
My house is 2x6 insulated (fiberglass) construction but has no vapor barrier or housewrap inside or out. I can see where air leaks out through the walls by the frost marks - basically the fiberglass is just a filter unless it's encapsulated by an air barrier (preferably on both sides, but then there's the mold issue). I had a blower door test done (free) by the utility company, and they reported that the house has one air exchange per hour. I suspect it loses even more than that when it's really cold out.
Anyway.... I plan to use spray foam (tigerfoam) in the walls. I'm going to start with the second floor, where the gable end wall is wood paneling and I know it is leaking terribly. I hope that slows down the infiltration of cold air from the crawl space, which is moldy and nasty. I also need to get down there and put a good vapor barrier over it, sealed and taped to the stem walls.
I've considered using a cheap flourescent light fixture with a UV bulb down there to reduce the mold. We get the most mold in the winter, since it all dries out in the summer here.
There's lots of discussion about crawl spaces/ basements and whether to ventilate them or seal them. I believe it depends on your climate - in summer the cool basement will actually condense moisture from warm humid air, making things worse. So sealing it and treating it like conditioned space is the best. You might look at a good way to seal off the foundation inside (I"m thinking spray foam) and vapor barrier (or even better, concrete with thoroseal) the basement floor. Once it's sealed, then things like dehumidifiers make sense.
Seems like you might wait till you get your new siding and see how if the floor leaks decrease in the winter. Make sure they tape all the seams with a good tape like Tyvek - the stuff really sticks.
BTW I grew up in the Kingston NY area and my Dad spent 20 years in Margaretville - yeah, it's a tough climate, cold in winter and hot in summer. But it's gorgeous.
PS I have the book Segundo recommends - Insulate and Weatherize : Expert Advice from Start to Finish (Build Like A Pro) by Bruce Harley. It's really good and shows how to tighten up a home. I"ll bet if you look at your roof you can see lots of snow melting off (causing ice dams). That tells you that you're losing lots of heated air into your attic. The air moves up through interior walls that aren't sealed at the top, through exterior walls the same way, and through all penetrations - wiring, plumbing vents, and heat ducts. If you seal the exterior using foam, that won't stop the air that moves up into your attic and you'll still be leaking lots of air.
It takes more time than money to fix this if you do it yourself. Foam around the plumbing vents - I'll bet you see lots of snow melting around them. The worst is crawling in the attic to seal the tops of the exterior walls. Kinda claustrophobic, especially when there's insulation there. But that's what causes ice dams, warm air moving up through the exterior walls. It'll solve about two or three major problems if you can do it - ice dams, mold infiltration, heating bills, cold feet.
As I write this I'm in my 55 degree house since I'm too stubborn to pay $150+ per month for electric heat. We burn wood and wear fleece, and I keep finding and fixing air leaks. Last winter it was 45 degrees in here - I'm making progress. I wish I had a heated mouse, though. You can see I'm obsessed with this issue. I have come to despise fiberglass insulation. It's just a filter. Don't waste your money putting it under the floor.
We had the identical problem with a parsonage that the church owns that I attend; gaps in the pine flooring, crawlspace below allowing cold winter air to infiltrate up.
The house wasn't worth putting a tremendous amount of money/effort into, so we bought a stack of 1" blue poly foam sheets, cut each sheet to friction fit into each stud bay, and tacked it in place using 1.5" roofing nails using a gun. Aluminum disks prevented shooting the nail thru the insulation.
This would be fixing the symptom, not curing the problem, but it would be a cheap way of stopping the cold infiltration, as well as adding some insulation.
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Invictus, by Henley.