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March 30, 2006
looking to insulate my roof
The heating bills for 2-family townhouse have been quite high this winter, because we have to crank the furnace so the upstairs apartment gets heat. One of the heating specialists we had in suggested that we get our roof insulated, as most heat is lost thru the roof. When we bought the house in July we had the roof resurfaced, but we didn't think to insulate at the time (and the roofers and contractor never suggested it). It is a hundred year old, brownstone-type house with no attic. I have heard bad things about the blown-in insulation. Has anyone had the roof of their brownstone insulated. Can anyone recommend a company to do this? Many thanks!
Comments
call federal conservation...in yellow pages...wonderful folks and honest...they did our roof 3 years ago and it has saved us money...they'll explain everyting...i think the guys name is freddie....but not sure
Posted by: Anonymous at March 31, 2006 1:34 AM
We had similar issues. Do you have steam heat? We had the venting adjusted and it made a big difference in heat distribution and the cold 4th floor.
I'm skeptical of blown insullation too, so we are looking into installing a very simple green roof by next fall. I worked on them in Chicago (City Hall), and the City is finding energy needs decreased by %25 or so.
Posted by: HC at March 31, 2006 3:37 PM
I just bought a flat roof house upstate for wkend use....so little insulation and big heat bills.
Am looking into having some sort of foam blown/poured on top of roof that adds quite a bit of R-value.
Apparently used on commercial bldgs mostly...
and supposedly inpenetrable to water - just reseal every 5 years. Hardens and fine to walk on. But if roof is visible - than looks ugly.
Luckily my roof will not be visible.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 31, 2006 4:11 PM
Yes, we have steam heat. We did have the air valves changed, but it didn't seem to make a big difference. Is that what you mean by venting? Someone suggested bleeding the radiators, but none of the three plumbers I had look at my heating system mentioned that (and none of them could come up with a solution - unbelievable). What is a green roof. I am very curious.
Posted by: anonymous at April 1, 2006 10:49 PM
I am not a plumber, so I am only speaking from our experience . . . Steam systems can't be "bled" - I understand that hot water systems sometimes require that. We actually found out that the vents on our vertical (main) pipes needed new, much larger vents. And the one "cool" radiator had the vent at the top of the radiator. When a new one was installed halfway down the radiator, it made a big difference and got much hotter.
A green roof is basically a layer of lightweight planting medium and plants on the roof of a building. It offers insullation, reduces stormwater runoff, and cools the roof through transpiration. It can be modular, or a roof-wide system.
Greening Gothem is one organization that is working to increase green roofs in NYC (http://www.greeninggotham.org/vision.php). I am not affiliated with them - just interested in the idea.
Good luck!
Posted by: HC at April 3, 2006 10:38 AM
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