# Insulating tricks?



## Bushels20 (Sep 16, 2020)

I’ve eliminated all of the usual suspects. New windows, insulated the attics, insulated block off plate last year.

As I usually do this time of year I start thinking of ways to keep that wood heat in the house as long as possible. Today I sealed/insulated the attic hatches/doors and insulated the sill plate around the foundation. I have periodically caulked “drafty” molding/casing throughout the years.

Wondering if anyone has anyone suggestions or ideas I may have not thought of. Not looking to drop a lot of money. The windows and attic insulation took care of that for me


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## NoGoodAtScreenNames (Sep 16, 2020)

Anything that pokes a hole through an exterior wall - vents, light switches etc. including on the exterior side for vents, faucets etc. 

For outlets and switches they make a little pre-shaped foam that sticks to the drywall and then held by the outlet cover if you don’t want to caulk around the box.  
I had a few light switches where I could feel a cold draft on the interior side. Sealing made a difference.


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## Mech e (Sep 16, 2020)

If you can get your hands on a FLIR camera, it is a great tool to walk around the house (inside and out) to find heat leaks.   You will be able to see wall studs and ceiling joists, missing insulation,  leaks around doors and windows,  etc.  It is a great tool.


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## DuaeGuttae (Sep 16, 2020)

NoGoodAtScreenNames said:


> Anything that pokes a hole through an exterior wall - vents, light switches etc. including on the exterior side for vents, faucets etc.
> 
> For outlets and switches they make a little pre-shaped foam that sticks to the drywall and then held by the outlet cover if you don’t want to caulk around the box.
> I had a few light switches where I could feel a cold draft on the interior side. Sealing made a difference.



I'll second those little foam outlet seals.  I used two packs this past year taking care of outlet plates and light switches and other penetrations, and it made a noticeable difference in feeling air leaks.  I also used weatherstripping around doors that needed renewing.  In our last house we replaced the sweep on the bottom of the front door with a heavy duty one, and that made a difference.  It all depends where your leaks are, of course. 

Do you have can/recessed lights?  Those can be another area that can benefit from attention.


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## Bushels20 (Sep 16, 2020)

DuaeGuttae said:


> I'll second those little foam outlet seals.  I used two packs this past year taking care of outlet plates and light switches and other penetrations, and it made a noticeable difference in feeling air leaks.  I also used weatherstripping around doors that needed renewing.  In our last house we replaced the sweep on the bottom of the front door with a heavy duty one, and that made a difference.  It all depends where your leaks are, of course.
> 
> Do you have can/recessed lights?  Those can be another area that can benefit from attention.



I will pick up some packs of those foam outlet seals. Good idea.

Yes, have some can lights. They are in soffit in an interior room/wall however. Does that-change any thing you think?


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## woodgeek (Sep 16, 2020)

In my 1960 house the airsealing did a LOT more than increasing the insulation, and most of the air leaks  were not where I could feel a draft.

They were mostly in my attic.  On both sides of the top plates of the stud walls, the drywaller left a 1/8" gap on both sides, tying the attic space in to the interior wall cavities.  If you add up the perimeter of all the interior walls, that was about 2 square feet of opening from my house into the attic.  Add in the plumbing chase (another 2 square feet) and the inch around the masonry chimney (another square foot)  I essentially had an open window (5 square feet) connecting my finished space to my attic air space.   So I sealed all those (with silicone caulking) BEFORE I had a foot of cellulose blown over the top of the ancient fiberglass.   If you have deep insulation over that stuff, it will still leak and bypass all your insulation. 

And honestly, the attic airsealing, by itself, reduced the heating demand in my house by about 25% and made it a lot more comfortable.


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## DuaeGuttae (Sep 17, 2020)

Bushels20 said:


> I will pick up some packs of those foam outlet seals. Good idea.
> 
> Yes, have some can lights. They are in soffit in an interior room/wall however. Does that-change any thing you think?



I really can't speak to what's going on inside that soffit, but I think @woodgeek gave some great examples of how air can leak between the conditioned and unconditioned areas in the home.  Older can lights are notorious for it because of how they were vented to shed heat from incandescent bulbs.  It just might be an area to look at when you are hunting for low-hanging fruit, so to speak.  If you have an infrared thermometer and a good temperature differential between outside and in, that can give you an idea.  We replaced all our old cans (some even still had incandescent bulbs) with LED retrofits, even if we weren't sure that the particular light was a source of leakage.  Some of ours, especially ones that vented right to our attic and didn't have the protective insulation cone, were bad.  

I know you aren't looking to spend a lot of money, but you might want to check to see if your local power company sponsors energy audits or LED changeovers.  We paid to have an energy audit done our first winter here, and it was very helpful to us, but it wasn't cheap.  It told us a lot about where to direct our energies in making improvements.


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## peakbagger (Sep 17, 2020)

The obvious question is have you had an energy audit done that includes a blower door test?. The goal of a typical energy audit is to identify the heat loss points and then prioritize them with respect to payback.  On my newer home, the big air leaks were can lights sticking into the attic, a large "florida fan" going through to the attic and surprisingly a lot of leakage from my walls at the junction of the floor to the wall. I also had a surprising amount of air leakage in through exterior wall outlets and of course the basement boxes and sills. 

I had fairly tight house to begin with, be aware that once you tighten the palce up indoor air quality can go down especially if you have unvented gas appliances like a kitchen range in the house, The current design approach is over seal the house so its way to tight and put in an air to air heat exchanger to introduce outdoor air somewhat preheated by stale air exhausted from the house.


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## Bushels20 (Sep 17, 2020)

peakbagger said:


> The obvious question is have you had an energy audit done that includes a blower door test?. The goal of a typical energy audit is to identify the heat loss points and then prioritize them with respect to payback.  On my newer home, the big air leaks were can lights sticking into the attic, a large "florida fan" going through to the attic and surprisingly a lot of leakage from my walls at the junction of the floor to the wall. I also had a surprising amount of air leakage in through exterior wall outlets and of course the basement boxes and sills.
> 
> I had fairly tight house to begin with, be aware that once you tighten the palce up indoor air quality can go down especially if you have unvented gas appliances like a kitchen range in the house, The current design approach is over seal the house so its way to tight and put in an air to air heat exchanger to introduce outdoor air somewhat preheated by stale air exhausted from the house.



How did you solve the leakage at the wall/floor? We have white baseboard so could caulk/paint. Or, clear caulk a very fine line at the shoe mold, maybe.  That is something I wouldn’t have thought of.


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## peakbagger (Sep 17, 2020)

I didnt solve it, My thought was pull the baseboard molding and my radiator casings and put some caulk down. 

I am way past the point of diminishing returns on investments on heating. I burn about 3.5 cords each winter with a minisplit supplying shoulder season heat with just about zero oil usage in a  much colder climate than OH. I consider what air leakage I have as makeup air as I havent hooked up an air to air heat exchanger so I am probably borderline on adequate air makeup. I generate excess solar power so the minisplit and any electric space heaters I use are effectively free to run.


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## MissMac (Sep 21, 2020)

peakbagger said:


> I didnt solve it, My thought was pull the baseboard molding and my radiator casings and put some caulk down.
> 
> I am way past the point of diminishing returns on investments on heating. I burn about 3.5 cords each winter with a minisplit supplying shoulder season heat with just about zero oil usage in a  much colder climate than OH. I consider what air leakage I have as makeup air as I havent hooked up an air to air heat exchanger so I am probably borderline on adequate air makeup. I generate excess solar power so the minisplit and any electric space heaters I use are effectively free to run.


Do you have an outside air kit installed for your stove?


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## peakbagger (Sep 21, 2020)

I have a boiler in my basement and tall interior stack. No outside air kit. No doubt when I am running the boiler I have quite a draft but the rest of the time I probably have a lot less.


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## semipro (Oct 9, 2020)

A single contiguous air infiltration envelope should be created at either the interior or exterior walls.  Trying to do some of both at the same time may be a waste of effort  (e.g sealing siding with caulk and interior outlets with foam).  This has been borne out by blower door testing though I can't find the reference right now.
An exterior envelope includes an air infiltration barrier under the siding and at doors, windows, etc.  An interior envelope can be done well during new construction by sealing interior walls,  outlets, etc.  but is tough to do later. 
I'm in a situation similar to the OP's and I have concentrated my efforts on the outer shell.  I did this only after I did a bunch of interior sealing in the house only to see (with an IR camera) the cold air take an alternate path, usually under the baseboard or around window trim.
I'd suggest you fortify a single line of defense rather than spread your resources around haphazardly.

Also, you can do some pretty good testing with a simple window fan and an IR camera on a cold day.  Blow the air out a window and makeup air will infiltrate elsewhere which can be seen readily with the IR camera from inside.  You can also turn the fan around and go outside with the IR camera to see exterior leaks.


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## Seasoned Oak (Jan 31, 2021)

Mech e said:


> If you can get your hands on a FLIR camera, it is a great tool to walk around the house (inside and out) to find heat leaks.   You will be able to see wall studs and ceiling joists, missing insulation,  leaks around doors and windows,  etc.  It is a great tool.


These are great tools.  Of course its always the windows and doors that stand out as huge heat losers.


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## DBoon (Feb 3, 2021)

This might be an easy retrofit for you and can eliminate a source of air leaks https://www.tamtech.com/product-category/cape-backdraft-dampers/


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## Dobish (Mar 5, 2021)

we are in the process of tearing out our stairs to move them, and rebuilding a room under our main living room. Given that the top part of the room was built in 1975, and the lower part was built in 1948 (or before) we were pretty sure that we had a lot of opportunity to make some changes in how things were insulated. Our access to the attic was outside the house, so we had a lot of big holes where that was. There was only 3" of steel wool insulation in SOME of the attic, so when I moved it over and tore down the ceilings, we were able to see where the issues were. I went around and foamed and caulked all of the holes going into the house. There are no soffit vents, but I added some rafter ventilators where I could get to the open rafters. In some spots, there were holes the size of baseballs where the cold air was rushing in.

I of course made sure to do it on the day that it was -9ºF, so it was really apparent (that is also the only day I had a fire in the house this year, because the house was 24º inside and one of my water pipes broke).  We have been slowly adding insulation and caulking where we can. We have replaced most of the windows, and there is only 1 left that is the original single pane window. I keep trying to replace it but my wife likes the look of it.  While I was poking around and having to move a water line, I discovered that above my hallway, they had put a single piece of insulation to make it look like there was some there, but it was all open air space. That of course leads all the way into our living room, as well as our bedrooms, so no wonder it was super cold!  That is getting fixed next week when I blow in insulation.

The other thing that I ended up doing was filling the cinder block with insulation in the basement. Since we had everything ripped out to the joists, I was able to fill the blocks with loose fill insulation, then cap it off with some batt insulation.  I make sure to foam and caulk all the way around the sills and top plates. We then firred out the walls with 2x4, and I used R13 on the exterior walls. I made sure to fill all of the gaps and cracks between the joists and beams with either foam or insulation.  Since the bedroom is underneath the main entrance, I put in some rockwool insulation for sound and fireproofing. I made sure to insulate my time capsule well too 




In the main living room, we opted to go with a vaulted ceiling, made of 2x6, that I filled with R21 all the way up and across. Even though most of the walls are 2x4 in this space and I didn't take anything out, I ended up putting R21 in the previously uninsulated wall.  I made sure to seal up all of the corners, gaps, and cracks. 


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We are going to blow insulation back on the other section of the house, so we are hoping that will make things much warmer!


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## laynes69 (Mar 9, 2021)

I'm with woodgeek. I ended up buying a seek thermal cam for my cellphone. I ended up finding 32 open cavities in our attic hidden under pink insulation and a few inches of cellulose. I also went around the perimeter of the attic and sealed all of the top plates and exterior walls. We have an old victorian and some gaps were over 1" from critters chewing over the years. I bet we cut around 30% from the heating demand just airsealing the attic alone. Insulation only goes so far and depending on the type, airleakage can overcome the insulation.  I started in the basement with an incense stick and if a gap drew air into the living space above I caulked or foamed. I also sealed all of our ductwork in the basement for leaky ductwork can accelerate air leakage. If you can afford a seek thermal cam, do it. The cameras while not having a high resolution cam, they will find every little air leak!


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## clancey (Mar 9, 2021)

Put a longer curtain rod over your doors and slide the heavy curtain to the right of that when you are not using the door and pull the curtain over the door at night time and roll up a rug and put in front of the door.. That will help a little..clancey


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