I N S U L A T I O N

A girl

I have an old home with no insulation between the joists. If there is any, it's not much.

I would like to blow the cellulous type in the outside walls but the walls are plaster and lath and I'm not sure the procedure to follow.

There is romex wiring in the walls so hopefully, a possible fire would not be a problem.

Any suggestions?

Tony

thfurnitureguy_4

I had an old farm house that they drilled 4" holes through the clapboard, near the celing and between the studs ( it was done before the siding was done) they than used blown in and covered the holes with fanfold foam and siding. no reason it couldn't be done from the inside (just lots of plaster repair)

J.C.A._3

I worked.....

In a place that had blown in cellulouse last Friday....

They were strippng out almost 1/2 of the house. The sections that I had to deal with were mostly stripped of wallboard and outside finish. While taking the baseboard off the walls, I was quite impressed with the amount of material that ened up behind it.The contractor was too !

I would recommend a good contractor with proper knowledge of buildings in the near area to blow in cellulouse.

The way fuel prices are heading....I would also think of this as an investment and not so much as a liability. Your home will be worth FAR more than the initial investment if you can show the numbers.JMHO. Chris

A girl

Chris~

That sounds like great advice! I can imagine it would cost me an arm and leg to have a contractor fix it~ I should be able to do the job with a couple of buddies

Ron Schroeder_3

blowing celulose

HD rents blowers for free if you take over a certain number of bags of insulation. The blowers work quite well for attics where even a lay person can see what they are doing.

It does take someone with considerable experience to blow walls. My experience here in Canada is that this is done from the exterior of the exterior walls.The results are gratifying.

Romex should be no problem. Old fashioned cross bracing and firestopping is another matter alltogether.

A good investment is a thermographic mapping of your building envelope. The service is not cheap. The information is invaluable. Thermal bridges and isulation voids show up well in the hands of a skilled operator.

Stay/get warm.
Shalom.

Dirk Wright

Do you mean studs or joists? Is this the attic, the floor over a crawl space, or the walls? The DOE has a great web site for determining the optimum amount of insulation based on where you live. Blown in rock wool is very fire resistant and many companies do this work without causing huge holes in your walls. For an attic, I'd blow cellulose to at least R38.