Best Insulation for Small Extension
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…
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.
If your walls are 2×4 putting r-38 in place of r-13 is not going to yield a big improvement fiberglas batts are not intended to be compressed. Blue or pink foam boards are a much better solution. You can cut pieces of 2″ or thicker to fill between the studs and bed them in spray foam to seal the gaps a good seal is crucial. Then attach full sheets of 1″ or thicker foam to seal the whole assembly and cover with fire rated 5/8″ sheetrock. It has to be fire protected and by code usually 4″ is the maximum thickness allowed.
High density spray foam is the best but it is expensive. Tiger foam is a DIY spray but still not cheap.
As a temp fix, I emptied three cans of spray foam and that seemed to help a great deal. Also, I bought three packs of R 38 insulation which is what you put in an attic. Once the hubs gets home tonight, we are going to swap the R 13 for the R 38 to see if that helps. I am trying to DIY this because we have other plans for this space at a later date. We have to get our rentals done since everything that could go wrong with this house has and all in a two month period. Grrrr.
bedstuytownhouse – Also when we did the work. We removed the dry wall and bat insulation, then sprayed
It was a soybased insulation (cannot for the life of me remember the brand). Unfortunatly, I don’t have my receipt handy. My does my taxes and she has all my paper work. We got it on-line. My uncle and I did it ourselves. Mine was an extention is a brownstone, with three exterior walls. We did wear respirators and gloves. I remember, it was a low or no VOC product and the cost was less than $500.
BedStuyMaven,
Who did the spraying? Did you hire someone?
You step up into the room. Flooring is a couple of layers of peel and stick over sub floor from what I can tell.
What sort of flooring do you have there? The idea would be to lift without damaging whatever you have, spray the foam under the subfloor through cracks and/or drilled holes, and then reuse what you removed.
If you don’t feel up to the task, you could hire a handyman.
Had a similar problem. Bat insulation did not work. Still felt the draft. Try spray foam which will seal any air leaks. Can’t remeber the name, we used a soybased product.
I haven’t the slightest idea what is under the floors and am afraid to pull them up in this weather without having something to replace it with.