Insulation tips for an old house
Insulation tips for an old house
Insulation tips for an old house
Every year winter comes no matter if we like it or not, and with every winter comes the concerns over the expense to heat our homes. This especially true for those homeowners that own an old house in a cold region. The old saying "they don't build them like they used to." couldn't be any truer than when applied to house construction. The homes of today are built to need minimal maintenance while offering higher levels of comfort and reduced costs to heat.
Before we get into the why and how to save money on home heating we will first go over the cost and return on your investment. Yes insulating is an investment, just like when invest money what you spend today pays rewards down the road. The good thing about investing in the upgrading of the insulation of your home it never stops giving returns, as costs increase so do the savings.
If you are paying $2000 to heat your house this year in 25 years your total heating costs will add up to $95,354 at a rate of inflation of 5%. By reducing your heating costs by 5% you will save $4686 over the same period. By reducing your heating costs by 20% you will save $19,070 over the same period.
When dealing with old houses your present heating costs could well exceed $2000 and heating costs can be reduced by more than 20%. If you are presently paying $4000 a year to heat your home and could cut the costs by 40% your savings would total $76,283.
Although all of these savings sound great they are not cheap and to reach the greater savings huge amounts of expenses go along with it. In fact quite often exceed the money you would have saved on your heating costs. An old house was not built with energy efficiency in mind. Many of the insulation ideas and products were not available at the time of construction. Old houses weren't built using house wrap, vapour barrier, energy efficient windows, energy efficient heating systems, and insulation could be almost anything or nothing at all.
With all this in mind you need to analyze what you have and what you can improve on while keeping costs in mind. When remodeling or replacing components on your home you should always try to use energy efficient items even though the effectiveness of them may be minimal. Putting an energy efficient window in a tent isn't going to make it much warmer, the same applies for a poorly insulated house. Insulation alone will not make the you home energy efficient, it needs a means of stopping air movement through the insulation to allow it to reach it's maximum effectiveness.
Fibreglass batt insulation is the most popular form of insulation due to the cost and ease of installation. It has an R-value of 3 to 4 per inch. For a 2x4 wall the rating will be R12 to R13. Without house wrap to prevent air movement this number is greatly reduced. A polyurethane rigid panel has an R-value of 7 to 8 per inch and will be effected a lot less by air movement. Because of it's higher R-value and the fact that it resists air movement it is good choice to use where possible. Spray foams have an R-value of in range of 5 to 7 per inch. These are the basic products that you would use for most of your insulating problems.
When insulating an old house especially if you are trying to live in at the same time it is impossible to do it as good as it can be done for it would require removing all the drywall or plaster to get down to bare studs, replacing all the doors and windows, covering the outside withpolyurethane rigid panels ( foam-board ), adding house wrap, new siding, and insulating the entire inside walls and ceilings, adding vapour barrier, replacing the drywall, and than top all that off with an energy efficient heating system.
It is important to understand how to insulate properly even if you don't plan to completely strip your house. You may decide to redo the siding and upgrade the doors and windows. If so add the foam board panels and house wrap at this time. It will be well worth the extra money spent. The increased property value will almost always offset the cost of new siding, added exterior insulation, doors and windows.If you are removing drywall you can build the wall out to allow for extra insulation. This is also a good time to look at having the walls spray foamed with a good commercial spray foam.
These ideas are good but come with a high expense that does not always fit into budgets but should be kept in mind so they can be implemented during any major repair or remodeling project.
There are a number of things that can be done to reduce heating costs that have minimal expense and will be instant returns. Most of these can be done with limited home repair experience and require very few tools to accomplish. You can start by caulking around doors and windows. Make sure you have both the frame and the glass sealed. Weatherstrip doors and windows to prevent leaks. You can remove interior trim from doors and windows and remove the old insulation and replace with spray foam. Most hardware stores sell it in small cans that can easily do the job. Insulate basement floor joists to prevent cooler air in the basement or crawl way from cooling your main floors. Older houses can have air leaks around plugs and light switches that can be sealed. The bottom of baseboards can be sealed if they are leaking air. This can usually be done by removing the quarter round and applying a little silicone.
One last thing to consider while insulating and sealing air flow throughout your home you may require additional ventilation.https://sites.google.com/site/archwayhomerepair/
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