Adding Insulation To Exterior Walls

Choose fiberglass insulation batting.

Adding insulation to exterior walls. A question about replacing siding sheathing and batt insulation in a 50 year old house revives questions about the use of rigid foam insulation on exterior walls. There are various grades of insulating batting for different locations in the house so you ll need a different insulation for interior exterior attic or basement walls. The r value of the batt measures the thermal resistance so the higher the r value the more effectively. Adding extra insulation to the exterior walls of an older home when renovating or remodeling is a great way of improving a home s walls thermal performance and reducing energy use while reducing heating bills carbon footprint and improving a building s comfort level.

Adding exterior rigid foam. In some cases the cost of adding insulation may exceed the cost of energy needed to heat or cool it. How to insulate house walls from the outside. If your house is relatively new it may have insulation outside the basement or foundation walls.

It may look easy to go buy some packs of rigid insulation panels down at the. The grade of batting will vary depending on the wall that you re insulating. This video shows an example of a home that has rigid foam installed on it but not quite the way we would recommend. Don t worry there is a way.

If the crawlspace isn t ventilated it may have insulation in the perimeter wall. In this post we explain. While uninsulated walls are never beneficial from an eco friendly standpoint sometimes they can make more financial sense than if your only solution is to remove all of the drywall insulate install drywall and paint again. Correcting this can pose a challenge as it is often difficult to determine how much insulation is in the walls let alone gain the access needed to add more.

The only option is to add insulation to the exterior or to the interior. Many older homes and some newer ones lack sufficient insulation in the exterior walls. Many solid walls including double brick walls see figure 7 1 have a small cavity generally less than 25 mm 1 in which is a drainage plane that collects and drains water out of the wall. So if your house was built before insulating walls became standard you can potentially save a great deal of energy by insulating.

John hartman fine homebuilding magazine 208. Unfortunately however builders didn t insulate the walls of most homes built before the 1980s. Insulation in house exterior walls is one of the primary defenses against heat and energy loss. The builder or the original homeowner might be able to tell you if exterior insulation was used.