insulating a pocket door?

If you can slide your pocket door all the way out of the wall and look in, you will likely see through to the brick front of the house.  The only way to really stop the draft is to retro fit a non expanding spray foam in that cavity.

BSDOD

in Insulation 12 years and 4 months ago

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sprucenik | 12 years and 4 months ago

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We have a brownstone with what seems to be the typical parlor entry configuration – once you step into the house, there are pocket doors directly to the left going into the front room of the parlor.  So the pocket doors are perpendicular to the street/front of house.  Our problem is that there is a giant draft coming through the pocket door closest to the front of the house.  It is not just a little air coming in (which we have all over our drafty house) – if you stand in front of the pocket in cold weather you can feel a serious breeze.  We’d really like to insulate it, but I don’t think we can blow cellulose back there (the inside of the pocket is the lathe, so there’d be nothing to hold in the cellulose).  We’ve thought of just shoving some plastic to the back of the pocket for the winter, or hanging a curtain over the pocket opening, but surely there must be a more elegant solution.  Any ideas?  Thanks in advance.

brucef | 12 years and 4 months ago

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That cold air has to be getting into the partition wall somewhere. I would recommend sealing the exterior opening rather than futz with the pocket.

elbow | 12 years and 4 months ago

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Since the pocket doors are inside the air must be coming from around your front door, right? Do you have a vestibule? You could try installing sweeps at the bottoms of the entry doors, blown in insulation for the vestibule walls, and weatherproofing at the tops and sides. Aside from the blown in I’m not sure how to make this look good. Maybe you should just follow the victorians and use a heavy velvet curtain (in your case insulated).