Hi brownstoners,

Our small mud room in the rear of the house is absolutely freezing with major drafts coming in to the house to the point that the first floor is almost unlivable in this weather. We took the room down to the studs in November, threw some R-13 insulation and sheet rock up and that is obviously not helping at all. Any recommendations on what I can do to fix this? Should I throw my hands up and get a contractor in to fix this?

Thanks.


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  1. “Our small mud room in the rear of the house is absolutely freezing with major drafts coming in to the house to the point that the first floor is almost unlivable in this weather. We took the room down to the studs in November, threw some R-13 insulation and sheet rock up and that is obviously not helping at all.”

    BedStuyTownhouse, we have a mudroom in the rear of the house. It’s not a proper extension like some people have, but all our neighbors have the same mudroom. It’s just studs sitting on a cement slab, no proper foundation. (In fact, the cement near the house is cracked because the joists it sits on are rotted although they’ve since been replaced.)

    A few months ago, we insulated and covered the walls and ceiling with sheetrock. Didn’t really make any difference.

    We have crazy amounts of air coming through the door and window. And while you cannot exactly see daylight between floor and walls — whenever the neighbor does their laundry, our mudroom floor floods. (Because their waste pipe empties into their yard.) Like I said, there’s no proper foundation, and nothing covering or sheathing the area where floor meets wall.

    Strangely, the back of the house near the extension is not particularly cold. However, the floor above it certainly is.

    We’re going to weatherstrip the door and window and then see where we are.

    We have to do something to warm it up and fix the floor, since we need to reconstruct the back of the house plus the outhouse/bathroom off of it — so the pipes don’t freeze, since as it is they may as well be outside.

  2. BS Maven – yes it is a large pipe. What you say makes sense given the location.

    Bond – I will pick up a copy of Fine Homebuilding. I was also told that you wanted a little gap for optimization of the insulation. Who knew?

    Rusty Bob – Three cans of spray foam from Home Depot helped quite a bit in the band-aid department but I think I’ve got to take it down to the studs and start over by spray foaming the entire room and then going over that with fiberglass insulation.

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