Non-linear heatloss? What am I missing?

Jamie Hall

Part of this place I care for is balloon framed (1893). Part post and beam (about 1790). In the post and beam section, most of the framing wood is chestnut. Putting a hole in 200 year old chestnut is next to impossible; carbide drills are required, and a lot of power. Beautiful wide boards in the post and beam section. The balloon framed section has hard pine floors -- also beautiful.

Insulation? Whazzat... on the other hand, the combination of asbestos (oh the horror) shingles over clapboards over sheathing, air space, then horsehair reinforced plaster on wood lathe does surprisingly well.

Oddly the infiltration, all things considered, isn't all that bad. When I started caring for it, the windows were pretty bad, but I've repaired and rebuilt all of them (using the old wood and old glass) and they are remarkably tight.

icesailor

Probably Hemlock. It bends nails and is stringy and takes sharp bits to drill. Get out the files. Hole saws are nice too. They go right through cut nails with hardly a slow down.

Gordy

Chris J until your dreams come true window treatments do tons for heatloss, and gain plus cost far less than new windows. Cellular blind designs are best, but even other styles do more than nothing at all.

SWEI

Mark Eatherton said:

Balloon framed homes are really a challenge to control infiltration in and I am not ware of a good way to insulate the exterior walls, short of opening wall/ceiling and installing fire stops in the balloon frame so that cellulose can then be blown in, and even then, expect to "lose" a bunch of insulation to unseen cavities, etc.

Single story balloon framed houses are my favorite use case for dense-packed cellulose insulation. We staple perforated Tyvek along the knee sleeper wall in the basement/crawlspace, shove a hose down from the attic and fill 'er up. The before and after performance is a true eye opener -- and it comes with a free side order of massive fire risk reduction. I'll be doing our 1919 bungalow this summer and will grab some photos.

ChrisJ

SWEI said:

Mark Eatherton said:

Balloon framed homes are really a challenge to control infiltration in and I am not ware of a good way to insulate the exterior walls, short of opening wall/ceiling and installing fire stops in the balloon frame so that cellulose can then be blown in, and even then, expect to "lose" a bunch of insulation to unseen cavities, etc.

Single story balloon framed houses are my favorite use case for dense-packed cellulose insulation. We staple perforated Tyvek along the knee wall in the basement/crawlspace, shove a hose down from the attic and fill 'er up. The before and after performance is a true eye opener -- and it comes with a free side order of massive fire risk reduction. I'll be doing our 1919 bungalow this summer and will grab some photos.

This may be a dumb question but, how can you have a balloon framed single story house? Wouldn't a single story automatically be platform framed by nature?

Also, how can you have a knee wall in the basement?

icesailor

Before the standardization of dimensional lumber used for floor joists, most everything was a form of "Balloon Framing". The sill/sole plate sat on top of the foundation, and the joists were notched to the narrowest one so that when the joists were set on the sill, the tops were level. If it was a true one story, the collar ties/ceiling joists were set on the top plate and the bottoms were level. So the ceiling was flat for lathing. If the floor was flat and boarded over, there was usually a knee wall to raise the roof and available room heights. So there was a knee wall with a "ribbon" to hold the joist in place. Each joist was nailed to a vertical stud to keep the wall from "Ballooning" out. If you can pour insulation from the top and it runs out the bottom, and your standing on a floor to do it, there must be a Ribbon under you.

Back then, there were no battery powered circular saws. No Battery drills or sawzalls. Just 6 point and 12 point handsaws without carbide tipped teeth. If you hit a nail (Cut nails mostly), the saw was done and needed to go to Dr. Saw Sharpener. They came back from the Saw Hospital like razors. Most really old time carpenters who were right handed, had some part of a finger missing on their left hand from sharp says jumping out of a kerf.

ChrisJ

Ah,
It confused me when he said knee wall in the basement.

As per the definition knee walls are in an attic and used to support rafters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knee_wall


Apparently a short wall in a crawl space is referred to as a sleeper wall.


I don't have any knee walls, but someone did make a modification to support the attic floor via the rafters over our master bedroom, basically the opposite of a knew wall as the joists in the attic are undersized but the rafters are more than beefy enough. I'm probably going to have to do something similar to other areas in the future as the ceiling is sagging.

icesailor

Take a picture from the outside showing the gable end and a side. Often, when the top/attic floor is boarded over for storage, the would have a Blacksmith make a long rod with a threaded bolt on the end to pick up the load and hold up the ceiling. All kinds of things happen with unsupported roofs and rafters. Everything done is to distribute the weight of the unsupported structure to supported places called "Point Loads" where it travels to supported ground.

Think of it like water. You make it go where YOU want it to go. Same with building structures. If you don't give it a path to travel, it will find one. And it might not be pretty. Saddleback ridges aren't pretty.

ChrisJ

icesailor said:

Take a picture from the outside showing the gable end and a side. Often, when the top/attic floor is boarded over for storage, the would have a Blacksmith make a long rod with a threaded bolt on the end to pick up the load and hold up the ceiling. All kinds of things happen with unsupported roofs and rafters. Everything done is to distribute the weight of the unsupported structure to supported places called "Point Loads" where it travels to supported ground.

Think of it like water. You make it go where YOU want it to go. Same with building structures. If you don't give it a path to travel, it will find one. And it might not be pretty. Saddleback ridges aren't pretty.

This is the best I have on hand from when the B vent was installed.

What are you expecting to see?



Sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake asking the guy go to extra high with the B-vent. I wanted to make sure I had an excellent draft at all times, but sometimes it does look like a little much. One day I'll have the money to buy a face brick looking cover for it. Maybe.

SWEI

Thanks, Chris. Fixed the terminology goof (I am no carpenter.)

I call them balloon framed when the studs run from the foundation plate to attic (and up the gable on those walls) with no fire blocking. The technique I described above works amazingly well. Side note: It's important to complete any desired wiring changes before those cavities get filled.

ChrisJ

SWEI said:

Thanks, Chris. Fixed the terminology goof (I am no carpenter.)

I call them balloon framed when the studs run from the foundation plate to attic (and up the gable on those walls) with no fire blocking. The technique I described above works amazingly well. Side note: It's important to complete any desired wiring changes before those cavities get filled.

Luckily, sort of, my house had a fire in the livingroom in 1987 because someone fell asleep with a cigerette. This caused the entire house to be rewired with romex and a nice QO panel. Before that it had K&T.

One thing I hate seeing is when someone insulates walls that have K&T. It's safe, until you do things it's not designed for like surround it with insulation.

SWEI

Our knob & tube was replaced with first generation Romex sometime in the 1930's. Some hackaroo installed a new service about ten years ago -- feeding a bundle of NM cable to a big J-box where they wirenutted to the old stuff. I need to rewire before we insulate the walls.

icesailor

What are you expecting to see?



Sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake asking the guy go to extra high with the B-vent. I wanted to make sure I had an excellent draft at all times, but sometimes it does look like a little much. One day I'll have the money to buy a face brick looking cover for it. Maybe.



Two coats of flat black outside paint and you'll never see it in the dark. And anyone that doesn't like the way it looks, needn't look at it. It looks fine in the photo. W worked with a builder, who as soon as I was done running a vent through a roof, painted the white PVC with black paint.

Higher vents usually work better than lower ones. Spend your money on something better. Not fake brick wrap-arounds.

Put it another way. I've/We've looked at a lot of houses to buy. We found a lot of things we wouldn't have done that someone else did. So we agreed on this. If this house had everything we wanted. Price, location, room, everything we wanted and better than any of the ones we have looked at, would we decide not buy it because it has a silver chimney sticking out of the roof? We would have bought it.

icesailor

@ChrisJ:

Those photos look like you have "Novelty Siding: on your walls. At least in the closer building. I think that it was you that said that you didn't have sheathing, that the finished outside boards are the sheathing. Here's more history of the house.

https://books.google.com/books?id=oC4zG5aR4rwC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=novelty+wood+siding+history&source=bl&ots=7FTDBj9E20&sig=B6xO-t9u_Qc9tp9UkaELLbiKUd4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PjwMVYamNZDlsASnpYLgCg&ved=0CEAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=novelty wood siding history&f=false

I had a very old house I worked on for years, Probably after the Civil War when there was a period of easy money, this antique house Late 1700's early 1800's was completely done over with Victorian additions. The clapboard sidings and wood shingles were replaced with Novelty Siding. It was all butted to the original corner trims and fascia/frieze boards. Between 1920 and 1950, the building was then covered with shingles and they had to put molding strips on the corners and any place that the shingles went past the flat boards. The front of the house had all plank framed windows. Its fun looking for water leaks on these old cribs.

When you do heat loss on a building like that, there are specific factors you need to use. If you ever decide to blow in insulation, be super careful that they don't blow the novelty siding off the building. Should you ever decide to re-side it. be sure that someone carefully re-nails the old siding to the existing studs. Those nails are over 100 years old. If they're square head cut nails, they're probably getting tired and rotten.

Nice antique house. A lot were built like that after the Civil War for returning Vets trying to get their lives back together. Like the VA Loans after WW ll.

Paul48

As to stack effect.......Remember last winter, it was seriously cold( like this winter), and folks were coming here by the droves, complaining about the second floor overheating. Most of those folks had never experienced that before. Of course, for years our winters had hovered around 30* +/- 5*. It wasn't that many years ago that my buddy and I were working on his boat, in February, in tee-shirts.

icesailor

SWEI said:

Our knob & tube was replaced with first generation Romex sometime in the 1930's. Some hackaroo installed a new service about ten years ago -- feeding a bundle of NM cable to a big J-box where they wirenutted to the old stuff. I need to rewire before we insulate the walls.

Have you ever watched that guy from Canada on the DIY Channels, Mike Holmes? "Make It Right" or Holmes on Home Inspections? Hacksters on parade.

ChrisJ

icesailor said:

@ChrisJ:

Those photos look like you have "Novelty Siding: on your walls. At least in the closer building. I think that it was you that said that you didn't have sheathing, that the finished outside boards are the sheathing. Here's more history of the house.

https://books.google.com/books?id=oC4zG5aR4rwC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=novelty+wood+siding+history&source=bl&ots=7FTDBj9E20&sig=B6xO-t9u_Qc9tp9UkaELLbiKUd4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PjwMVYamNZDlsASnpYLgCg&ved=0CEAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=novelty wood siding history&f=false

I had a very old house I worked on for years, Probably after the Civil War when there was a period of easy money, this antique house Late 1700's early 1800's was completely done over with Victorian additions. The clapboard sidings and wood shingles were replaced with Novelty Siding. It was all butted to the original corner trims and fascia/frieze boards. Between 1920 and 1950, the building was then covered with shingles and they had to put molding strips on the corners and any place that the shingles went past the flat boards. The front of the house had all plank framed windows. Its fun looking for water leaks on these old cribs.

When you do heat loss on a building like that, there are specific factors you need to use. If you ever decide to blow in insulation, be super careful that they don't blow the novelty siding off the building. Should you ever decide to re-side it. be sure that someone carefully re-nails the old siding to the existing studs. Those nails are over 100 years old. If they're square head cut nails, they're probably getting tired and rotten.

Nice antique house. A lot were built like that after the Civil War for returning Vets trying to get their lives back together. Like the VA Loans after WW ll.

The siding you're seeing in that picture is aluminum siding that was done in the 1950s-1960s.

Not sure what novelty siding is, never heard of it? But yeah, if you look inside any of the walls you see the back side of the siding, which I was told was clapboard.

icesailor

The siding you're seeing in that picture is aluminum siding that was done in the 1950s-1960s.

Not sure what novelty siding is, never heard of it? But yeah, if you look inside any of the walls you see the back side of the siding, which I was told was clapboard.

Novelty wood siding:

https://www.google.com/search?q=novelty+wood+siding&biw=1093&bih=452&tbm=isch&imgil=GMfUZ-glxELhxM%3A%3B6E_ws5gDx3lGhM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.uvm.edu%252Flandscape%252Fdating%252Fbarns%252Fsheathing_materials.php&source=iu&pf=m&fir=GMfUZ-glxELhxM%3A%2C6E_ws5gDx3lGhM%2C_&usg=__7plVn1brIr7YJhEnOvsROMdcMaE=&dpr=1.25&ved=0CCkQyjc&ei=zU4MVd_-J4KnNtW9gPgC#imgrc=GMfUZ-glxELhxM%3A;6E_ws5gDx3lGhM;http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uvm.edu%2Flandscape%2Fdating%2Fbarns%2Fsheathing_materials_files%2Fimage008.jpg;http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uvm.edu%2Flandscape%2Fdating%2Fbarns%2Fsheathing_materials.php;154;140

Your aluminum siding was applied over novelty siding, especially if it is smooth inside.

When new, the siding ran to the corners with the corner boards and window trim applied over the siding. If they re-sided with Novelty Siding, they used trim strips to cover the end grains. Unless it was boarded with sheathing and they stripped the shingles. cladding and they used 5/4" trim. In which case, they don't need the trim strips to cover the ends of the siding. Look at any house with Vinyl siding. Every end joint has a square splice piece to but the vinyl siding to.

icesailor

Paul48 said:

As to stack effect.......Remember last winter, it was seriously cold( like this winter), and folks were coming here by the droves, complaining about the second floor overheating. Most of those folks had never experienced that before. Of course, for years our winters had hovered around 30* +/- 5*. It wasn't that many years ago that my buddy and I were working on his boat, in February, in tee-shirts.

That's what is called Global Warming. It gets warmer, AND Colder.

Then, there's that horizontal line of carbon in the marsh, found in the Chesapeake that coincides with the end of Clovis Point arrowhead and spears. When there was a massive die-off of large mammals and humans in North America.

Paul48

Yep...Those ancient men used too many cans of deodorant and caused that. They didn't know about the horrors of aerosol back then. There are gaping holes in the history of this planet, and that is a discussion, like politics or religion, that is best, left alone.

icesailor

Paul48 said:

Yep...Those ancient men used too many cans of deodorant and caused that. They didn't know about the horrors of aerosol back then. There are gaping holes in the history of this planet, and that is a discussion, like politics or religion, that is best, left alone.

Its not a matter of political beliefs. Its the historical evidence that's interesting. When the European explorers discovered the Islands of the South Pacific, they had been discovered by Asians, settled, the resources destroyed, and the civilizations collapsed from starvation. Central America where the Mayans lived have no rivers or river fed lakes. The only rain is during the summer rainy season. To provide water for crops and civilization, the Mayans built vast reservoirs to store water for the dry seasons. Five years of no rain during the rainy seasons and a lack of Hurricanes to replenish water, led them to leave and move North and become the Aztecs, much later. The Anasazi's all died off from a lack of water. At the same time, there was a super cold period in Northern Europe. Around the same period when the Viking Settlers of Greenland had their climate get so cold that they couldn't grow crops of feed their livestock. So, they ate them, and died off.

Nothing Political. Ships just happen.

Most people don't believe anything they don't want to believe, and believe little to nothing about before they were born.

ChrisJ

@icesailor

I don't know if what I have looks anything like that siding.
They look like square cut boards, no special cuts. I was also able to seem some light peaking through the seems when I ran some romex up to the baby's room through a wall.


A small section of the house does not have aluminum siding, not sure why but it could have to do with the porch / car port roof that was added at some point.

Here is a close up of that, and as you can see, nothing fancy and on the inside they are fairly rough, not smooth. On the left side of this picture is aluminum siding which can barely be seen, the large section is just painted overlapping boards.

What you see here, is exactly what is in the walls only the reverse of course, and not painted.

Fred

That is regular lap siding with what looks like a 4" or 5" exposure. Very typical for frame homes built in the late 1800's and during the Victorian era. Still used today but most people go with a 5" exposure to save a little on material costs.

icesailor

Some things are hard to discern in a photographic resolution.

The human camera and a photograph only see in two dimensions. The human eye in three.

ChrisJ

Fred said:

That is regular lap siding with what looks like a 4" or 5" exposure. Very typical for frame homes built in the late 1800's and during the Victorian era. Still used today but most people go with a 5" exposure to save a little on material costs.

icesailor said:

Some things are hard to discern in a photographic resolution.

The human camera and a photograph only see in two dimensions. The human eye in three.

I grew up in a family of carpenters and live next to one. All of them said it was normal clapboard siding with 4" exposure. However, none of them have any experience or knowledge on anything near this old.

I'm still trying to understand what novelty siding is though, even though I don't think that's what it is. Is it basically a tongue and groove version of what I have?

Fred

ChrisJ said:

Fred said:

That is regular lap siding with what looks like a 4" or 5" exposure. Very typical for frame homes built in the late 1800's and during the Victorian era. Still used today but most people go with a 5" exposure to save a little on material costs.

icesailor said:

Some things are hard to discern in a photographic resolution.

The human camera and a photograph only see in two dimensions. The human eye in three.

I grew up in a family of carpenters and live next to one. All of them said it was normal clapboard siding with 4" exposure. However, none of them have any experience or knowledge on anything near this old.

I'm still trying to understand what novelty siding is though, even though I don't think that's what it is. Is it basically a tongue and groove version of what I have?

Novelty siding was a term used for virtually any siding profiles that differed from standard Lap (in this part of the country, Clabber siding or Clap siding in other parts of the country). Many, many other profiles exists, probably the second most common is a siding called Ship lap. It is much more flat surface but has a groove carved into it where the horizontal ends come together, creating an almost bead board look with wider spacing between the grooves.
Many of the other, more decorative sidings were reserved for the wealthy (because of costs) or used sparingly as decorative ornamentation, like on gables, around porches, etc.
Another very decorative (novelty) siding, very popular during the Victorian era is the Fish scale cedar siding, often configured is very ornate patterns.

ChrisJ

Fred said:

ChrisJ said:

Fred said:

That is regular lap siding with what looks like a 4" or 5" exposure. Very typical for frame homes built in the late 1800's and during the Victorian era. Still used today but most people go with a 5" exposure to save a little on material costs.

icesailor said:

Some things are hard to discern in a photographic resolution.

The human camera and a photograph only see in two dimensions. The human eye in three.

I grew up in a family of carpenters and live next to one. All of them said it was normal clapboard siding with 4" exposure. However, none of them have any experience or knowledge on anything near this old.

I'm still trying to understand what novelty siding is though, even though I don't think that's what it is. Is it basically a tongue and groove version of what I have?

Novelty siding was a term used for virtually any siding profiles that differed from standard Lap (in this part of the country, Clabber siding or Clap siding in other parts of the country). Many, many other profiles exists, probably the second most common is a siding called Ship lap. It is much more flat surface but has a groove carved into it where the horizontal ends come together, creating an almost bead board look with wider spacing between the grooves.
Many of the other, more decorative sidings were reserved for the wealthy (because of costs) or used sparingly as decorative ornamentation, like on gables, around porches, etc.
Another very decorative (novelty) siding, very popular during the Victorian era is the Fish scale cedar siding, often configured is very ornate patterns.

Quite a few houses much newer than mine in this area have that.

Fred

Quite a few houses much newer than mine in this area have that.
They are much newer than yours and have those types of siding because we were begining to enter the Industrial age and powered manufacturing technologies made it possible and, while still expensive, still within reach of a growing population.

ChrisJ

Fred said:

Quite a few houses much newer than mine in this area have that.
They are much newer than yours and have those types of siding because we were begining to enter the Industrial age and powered manufacturing technologies made it possible and, while still expensive, still within reach of a growing population.

Judging by the maps I have I'd say 30 years newer give or take.

It's funny because for some reason when I think about 150 years 30 doesn't seem like much but now days a 30 year old house is considered an old dump by many.

KC_Jones

My house was built during the victorian era and even though it is a more "low end" of it's time it has ship lap style siding on most of the house (covered in aluminum ship lap style now). On all the gable ends it is cedar shakes again covered in that aluminum. I can see the cedar in the attic since they didn't do solid sheathing under cedar back then it was "skip sheathing" that left the back of the cedar shakes open to breathe.

Fred

KC_Jones said:

My house was built during the victorian era and even though it is a more "low end" of it's time it has ship lap style siding on most of the house (covered in aluminum ship lap style now). On all the gable ends it is cedar shakes again covered in that aluminum. I can see the cedar in the attic since they didn't do solid sheathing under cedar back then it was "skip sheathing" that left the back of the cedar shakes open to breathe.

They left those wide gaps in the furring strips when they did the roofs in cedar as well. Really helped the longevity of the cedar but crappy when we moved to composite roofs. They either tore everyting off, down to the rafters and sheeted the roof or they left the furring strips and sheeted on top of them. The hack roofer just laid the new roof on top of the cedar shingles.

icesailor

Back a ways, I posted a link to the different types and styles of "Novelty Sidings". In old barns, they strapped the roofs with boards that matched the on center of the shingle nailing. Sidewalls were often vertical boards. Wither ship lap or board & Batten. What you see today is 1 X 6 0r 8 clapboard that one laps over the other with one side rough sawn and the other side planed smooth. The rough side holds paint better. But when laid, it is not smooth in back like Novelty Siding is.

ChrisJ

icesailor said:

Back a ways, I posted a link to the different types and styles of "Novelty Sidings". In old barns, they strapped the roofs with boards that matched the on center of the shingle nailing. Sidewalls were often vertical boards. Wither ship lap or board & Batten. What you see today is 1 X 6 0r 8 clapboard that one laps over the other with one side rough sawn and the other side planed smooth. The rough side holds paint better. But when laid, it is not smooth in back like Novelty Siding is.

I'm 90% sure the back of mine is rough, similar to the roughcut lumber.

Fred

icesailor said:

Back a ways, I posted a link to the different types and styles of "Novelty Sidings". In old barns, they strapped the roofs with boards that matched the on center of the shingle nailing. Sidewalls were often vertical boards. Wither ship lap or board & Batten. What you see today is 1 X 6 0r 8 clapboard that one laps over the other with one side rough sawn and the other side planed smooth. The rough side holds paint better. But when laid, it is not smooth in back like Novelty Siding is.

A lot of what we see today is actually Hardi plank. (a cement product) it too is typically 8" wide. It has an artificial woodgrain on one side and a smooth surface on the back side. We actually allow it in Historic Districts today because it is so durable and holds paint really well. We do require the homeowner to use the back side (smooth) because the artificial wood grain looks fake and we require the homeowner to match the original exposure of the siding on the house so when they get an 8" board, if the original exposure was 4", we require them to either cut the board down or cover half of it over with the next lap and we require the corner boards match the original so they are usually real wood.
We do not allow any aluminum or Vinyl siding at all.
We do allow vinyl windows and vinyl or aluminum clad replacement windows but we have a few select brands that are retrofit windows and their profile is very similar to the original look. The number of lites have to match original, no snap in/out grids. Can be a solid double or triple pane of glass but lite mullions must be permanently afixed on the outside of the glass, preferable on the outside and inside, with a spacer between the panes of glass.

Paul48

Fred.....Ever hear of horse-feather?

icesailor

Examples of the way it was done.

http://www.living-in-the-past.com/depot.html

You have to scroll down if interested.

The one I posted earlier shows even more designs.

Fred

Paul48 said:

Fred.....Ever hear of horse-feather?

Not familiar with that. I am familiar with horse hair that was blended into plasters and stucco to add strength, prevent cracking.

Fred

icesailor said:

Examples of the way it was done.

http://www.living-in-the-past.com/depot.html

You have to scroll down if interested.

The one I posted earlier shows even more designs.

@icesailor, Great examples of Lap and Ship Lap.

Paul48

It was the tapered strips of wood they would nail under the courses of cedar shingle to nail asphalt shingles over them. I only saw them as a kid, working for some Cannuck roofers. We ripped a lot of them off.

KC_Jones

Fred what about painted PVC trim boards like Azek for corner boards? Personally I try and get rid of the wood on the outside as much as possible without changing the look. I re did both porch floors with a product called Tendura (now Correct Porch I believe) that is a man made T&G decking specifically for covered porch floors. Great stuff hold paint fantastic! The old dead guys did some interesting stuff on houses. For example I have ship lap type siding and they used that siding (with a bead detail added) as baseboard trim throughout the house as well. They simply added a base cap on top of it and it looks great. How did I figure that out? On the bottom of the baseboard there is a rabbet on the back that fits the top perfectly...no other reason for it to be there. Interesting stuff.