Currently restoring the exterior of a 1950’s cape. Removed the wood gutter from the back of the house friday. The house doesn’t have a soffit, so the faccia is flush w/ the shingle siding. Removed the fascia as well. All was wet and rotten. Removed the pine boards from the ends of the rafter tails. Found 2 nests of carpenter ant eggs. Hopefully solved that problem. Now, that the rafter bays are exposed wondering if i should slide 2″ rigid foam into the bays on top of the R-11 foil faced batt insulation that’s present. I’m afraid this might be too much weight on the existing insulation. Any thoughts or experiences. Thanks again
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Bri, how far up can you see? To the peak?
If so, pull the FG out completely and blow it full of cellulose.
Joe H
Joe, I can see the ridge with a flashlight. Blowing in cellulose is going to eliminate the bays to vent, won't it? Do you have a insulation cont. comein to do this? Also any idea on the price, The back of the house is 26' and the bays are 20' long. I'm trying to get this closed back up in a couple of days. that's why i was leaning towards something i could install myself. Thanks joe
There's no way you will be able to shove 20' of foam up there without crushing and tearing the FG. Sounds good but won't work.
Getting anything done in 2 days probably won't happen either, but cellulose can be dense packed in there through a small hole that can be patched later. Forget the venting, fill it with insulation.
You can find a lot of info using the search feature, the Vent Wars go back for years and years, but the bottom line is dense pack with no vents vs venting.
Joe H
JUst to give you an update, we did achieve the task w/out using blown in cellulose. We used r-13 unfaced batts. We made a stick w/ a kitchen bag clip screwed on the end. Then we fed a string through the clip and brought down to the end of the stick. Next we took a sheet of 4 mil poly the width of the bay, And slid that as far as we could about three feet from the ridge. This is where the back dormer of the cape flattened out @ the collar ties. We pulled the stick back leaving the poly in place. Then we attached a 8' batt to the stick, pushed it till it stopped. Then pulled the stick back and then removed the poly. We got about 10' of inslutaion in each bay. There's about 3' to the ridge that we weren't able to rech. There is still a 2" vent pocket from the top of the new insulation to the roof deck. We then installed a vented drip edge to vent the bays. When we do the roof we will cut in a ridge vent.