The one tip I’ll give you is that if you are insulating in a crawlspace, make sure you have rodent proofing wire screens installed around any opening to the crawlspace. It will be a slow process in tight crawl spaces, but once it’s finished, you won’t have to do it again and your floors will be much more comfortable year round. If you have a basement or crawl space, the best way to insulate the floors of the living space above is much the same as the attic, by installing batts into the stud bays of floor joists. The bigger paybacks are under the floor and in the attic anyway. The problem is that it is difficult to know which situation you have, and so it’s usually best to leave well enough alone and not insulate the walls. In other cases, drilling holes in the walls or removing a couple courses of clapboard to blow insulation into the stud bays may work with no problems. Should it be done? That is another question.Īdding insulation to the walls of an old house without any other precautions can result is rotting walls full of mold under certain circumstances. “How can I insulate the walls of my old house without tearing down the plaster walls?” This is by far the biggest insulating dilemma faced by historic home owners. Tip: Be careful not to block any soffit vents with insulation if they are present in your attic. It should be installed light and fluffy to work best. Insulation looses its insulating abilities the more it is compacted. The trick for blown-in insulation (and any insulation for that matter) is to fill as much as you can without compacting it. You can rent an insulation hopper from most big box stores to blow in your own insulation with little difficulty. This will help to keep the living spaces below more comfortable year round. Once you’ve insulated the the underside of your roof, it makes sense to beef up the insulation even more by blowing in cellulose insulation on the floor of the attic. Here’s a quick tutorial on How to install batt insulation. (on-center) or 24″? Sometimes they aren’t evenly spaced which means more work trimming your batts to size. You’ll also need to determine the spacing of the rafters. Are they 2×6, 2×8 or bigger? The bigger they are, the thicker the insulation you can fit. If you have an unfinished and unconditioned attic like many old houses, my first recommendation would be to add batt insulation on the underside of the roof. The attic is often the easiest place to add insulation. Read more about the 3 types of heat here. The majority of heat loss and gain occurs in your attic. Insulation For a Cold Climate Insulating the Atticīefore you do anything else, this is where you should begin insulating, especially if you live in the hot southern states. I’ve written two detailed posts about how to properly insulate in either a hot or cold which might be a good place to check after getting the basics in this post. After all, you wouldn’t insulate a house in Miami the same as a house in Michigan. Your insulation plans should revolve around your climate. For the purpose of this post I’m going to be speaking about blown in cellulose and batts since they are the easiest to retrofit into an old house, but just know that you do have other options. You can read all about the differences, performance, and pricing in my earlier post All About Insulation. You have lots of options as far as materials you can use and I won’t go into too much detail about those here. Today, things have changed and to save yourself lots of money, it’s a good idea to learn how to insulate an old house without destroying it.īefore you start, check out the EnergyStar website to see what the recommended levels of insulation are for your climate zone. Before the energy crisis of the 1970’s, energy was abundant and cheap in America and it was cheaper to heat your old house than it was to insulate it. People fall in love with the character rich architecture of these homes, but they don’t want the crazy heating and cooling bills that come along with that character.Ĭhances are good that if your house was built before the 1960’s, there is little to no insulation. I get asked a lot about insulating old houses, especially in the wintertime.
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