[Greenbuilding] over-insulating

Gennaro Brooks-Church - Eco Brooklyn info at ecobrooklyn.com
Thu Jan 28 22:17:41 CST 2016


Congrats Ruben on your remodel. Sounds great.

>
> On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 7:04 PM, Reuben Deumling <9watts at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','9watts at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>
>> A conversation between Frank T and John S reminded me of something I'd
>> been meaning to post here: my recent adventure in over-insulating.
>>
>> I recently remodeled* a 2x6-framed two storey house in the Pacific NW of
>> the US (built by my family 30 years ago). Half of the upstairs I turned
>> into a self-contained apartment for my mother. It is about 500 square feet.
>> I added a 2x4 wall on the inside of all the exterior walls and blew in
>> dense pack cellulose, for a total walll thickness of about 11 inches. The
>> interior wall framing does not touch the original exterior wall which still
>> has the original fiberglass batts in it - I left the drywall in place. I
>> lofted the attic and ran horizontal 2x3 furring strips on the inside of the
>> 2x8 rafters attaching them with hurricane clips at the junctions. I reused
>> the original and some new fiberglass batts in two layers perpendicular to
>> each other ~ 11 inch total thickness. The original house had very poor air
>> sealing, and I tried to improve this as best I could. The windows are the
>> original thermopane inward opening casements imported from Germany. I added
>> wood framed storm windows that fit snugly, screens in the summer.  Heat is
>> provided by a small Danish wood stove with a flue-mounted water jacket for
>> domestic hot water.
>>
>> However...the heating demand for this space is very nearly zero. The
>> whole house (before this remodel) burned through about 5 cords/winter and
>> it was never really cozy. So far this winter my mom's burned a little over
>> one-tenth of a cord.
>>
>> Reuben
>>
>> * I know I asked a bunch of questions about this project of you folks
>> along the way. A belated thank you to all.
>>
>>
>>
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>
>

-- 
Sent from Mobile, excuse the brevity.
Gennaro Brooks-Church, Director
Eco Brooklyn
347-244-3016
22 2nd St, BK NY 11231
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