MOST HOMES, NEW OR OLD, NEED A TECHNOLOGY UPDATE ON THIER INSULATION AND AIR SEALING AT JOINTS:
TWO CONCEPTS:
1) The better the house is "air sealed", the less energy is needed to keep it cool or warm. 2) The better the house is "insulated", the less energy is needed to keep it cool or warm.
1) Insulation: Latest government studies show most home insulation is not effective per the documented rating because the insulation is not installed properly. Unless insulation is pushed into all corners of a cavity and all batts were touching each other on all edges, the air WILL FLOW and conduct cold or hot directly into the house. Most builders do not insulate the house as if it were their own house. Instead they insulate as fast as possible to met a deadline.
2) Sealing: Latest government studies show that leaking air is a worse problem than poor insulation. In the Winter, a home audit Infrared camera can show cold blue leaks for the entire length of a room where sheet rock walls meet the attic framing. Knee walls, floor joists and Cantilevers are not sealed to their frame. In each room, the warm air will rise to your top floor or ceiling and pass through the cracks. Cold replaces the warm air at the bottom levels of the house. This creates stratified cold air rooms and warm air rooms at basement or lower floors. The "tiniest leaks" add up to a cold room within an hour or two.
THE FIX:
INSULATING:
PolyIso Foam:
The ideal fix but Impractical and expensive is to spray PolyIso foam into the wall framing and window frames and possibly re-sheetrock some rooms. The PolyIso foam will stop 100% of all leaks in the house. PolyIso is the highest R factor per inch (r7.2) compared to Cellulose and Fiberglass batts.
DENSE PACK Cellulose: (not loose pack)
Homes can be "RE"-insulated and sealed after they were built. The trick is to insulate very tightly into the walls to reduce the air exchange that fiber glass NOT do. Catch two birds in one shot: 1) Add R value and 2) Stop or reduce air leaks. By using a tube fill process through holes drilled into the walls, Cellulose can be tightly packed into the walls. Spraying the cellulose into cavities will compress the old fiberglass insulation against the wall and create a dense pack in all crevices. IT IS THE INNER CORNERS AND CREVICES THAT COUNT! Pre cut Fiberglass batts can not fit into these corners and air flows very well through fiberglass batts.
SEALING:
ENERGY COMPLETE FOAM:
1) A new product called "Energy Complete" http://www.ocenergycomplete.com/ is engineered to spray just the right consistancy foam (pink) into the attic joints and other accessable joints in the basement or cantilevers. The foam comes out warm through long hoses from a machine the contractor has in your yard. Infrared camera photos before/after show a big improvement of no cold air leakage.
FIBERGLASS BLANKETS:
2) Seal vertical Knee walls in attics by covering them with wide 8 foot blankets of Fiberglass. The fiberglass is blanketed in between the plastic outer layers. Today's blankets have silver sheets with R19 fiberglass.
CONTRACTOR:
In Colorado, I contracted "BestWay Insulation" http://www.bestwayinsulation.com/ to bring my 1981 house up to the latest 2010 standards. BestWay did an excellent job of sealing up the house. They provide home air sealing with 1) ENERGY COMPLETE, 2) INSULATION BLACKETS and 3)DENSE PACK Cellulose. (NREL studies fully endorse these concepts for air sealing.)
They specialize in the procedure for "DENSE PACK". Dense pack requires A LOT OF HUMAN MUSCLE POWER. First a hole must be drilled into every 2X4 (or 2X6) section of every wall and every Vaulted ceiling joist for the air hose to fit in. BestWay employees know where to drill in order to hide the holes as best possible, after they are done. They can do brick walls and siding.
They jam a stiff hose far into the corners of the walls and slowly back out the hose as presure builds up after re-jamming the hose a couple times to ensure no space was missed. The hose cuts and tears through the old loose fiberglass batts to get to the far corners. It is the corners that count to stop the house from leaking air. Outside, in the contractors truck, the blower machine is higher powered air flow than can be rented at Home Depot.
Result: The old fiberglass is compressed against the wall as the cellulose fills the wall. The walls no longer exchange air with the outside, and the house will save energy because the furnace should run less.
Enjoy the pictures below: The whole house, including the garage walls and attic took 3 days with many employees, many cords and hoses. PICTURES PENDING.