Anybody here a contractor?

[boomintahoe]

Specifically in the housing market. Build walls, insulation, framework, remodeling, etc...in these areas. I'll try to keep this short as possible. Bought my house in 2008, which was built in 1969, just before the financial crash. Every winter it's a struggle for us because since this is a cold state, keeping warm is a must. Upwords of 700 bucks for 2 months. I have 2 kids, and 3 pets as well. My PUD is pretty high in the winter months. I got new vinyl windows some time ago. But what's really killing our bill is loss of heat thru the walls. I got "thin insulation" the kind that has the silverish front. I'm pretty sure it's the original insulation when the house was built. What I wanna do:  Is reinsulate the entire house. What's the best way to do this? I can do it inside but that would mean cutting multiple squares in my walls/dryall, remove the old insulation and patch everything back up. Or I started thinking the other day, why not do it from the outside. I  have wooden siding, should be pretty simple to do. The corners of the home has metal brackets from top to bottom. My thought? Label each siding before removal, so that I can put them back in order w/o mixup. Remove the vaperbarrier, then the cdx siding. then I'm able to get to the insulation. This sounds fairly easy, I thought. Prob a lot of work but doable.

 

My house isn't that big....1470 sq ft. 3 bedrooms.  I don't wanna go thru a contractor, cannot afford one. Can't go thru PUD because our power has been shut off a few times. They're really picky about getting their $$ for bill paying. If you guys have any ideas, comments, suggestions, by all means lmk.

 

[audiofanaticz]

Have blown in insulation. Typically your not having a contractor do it, but a independent company, and they are usually pretty reasonable, and you can usually write it off on your contract because your increasing the efficiency of your home and going "green".
They do it from the outside and drill about 2 inch holes in the walls towards the top of  wall between every stud.
Some companies do it from the exterior of the house, some do it from the interior, I guess that is something to ask them and the benefits and costs.
My house is cedarshake and they just removed panels between the studs and went at it, but this was years ago.

I see some of it is brick, and I know the same can be done, but it usually costs more, so maybe for that it might be cheaper to do that section on the inside.

My parents house is brick, and not insulated well and gets very cold in some of the kitchen cabinets when the doors are closed, and one of their closets by the front door. Temperature change is so drastic that condensation builds up pretty badly.

Also getting your attic filled with more blown-in insulation could help a lot too, or lay down some more bats of traditional insulation. That may help a lot if there is not much up there, or a really low r-value.

This is your only logical option IMO. Tearing the walls down and replacing the bat insulation would get costly quick, and be very labor intensive, plus all the materials, and re-drywalling all exterior walls. No bueno!

[audiofanaticz]

I do believe that companies are now able to foam using expanding foam even when the wall is closed off on both sides using a similar method to blowing insulation in. However this will cost more and not really something you can do yourself. Its a drasticly different type of foam compared to crap like GreatStuff (which is the worse to use for this type of situation).

Almost forgot, but since your garage is attached to the house.
It maybe a good idea to replace the weather stripping on the bottom of the door if it dont make a tight seal, and they also sell garage door insulation kits.

If you can improve the temperature of your garage during winter (even by a few degrees) that will be a tad bit warmer your house will stay since Im sure the walls between your garage are most likely not insulated or insulated poorly like the rest of your house.

[boomintahoe]

My front door is new. So is the framing around it.  My garage def gets cold in the wintertime. The one wall isn't insulated. Oh and neither is the other wall, on other side of garage.

 

I've done some research/reading on blown in insulation. What I don't like about it is you can't see where it's going, and the old insulation is still in there.  Sure I've watched people drill 6" dia holes or so in the wall to access the hose for the insulation to go in but again, I cannot see how much is going in, too little, not enough, too much, etc. I wish to remove the old insulation and install fresh new insulation.  How much "pressure" do the machines create for blown insulation and how well does it "pack" inside the walls? Me and my old lady have thought about it but she brings up some valued points. We can also rent a machine from Home Depot and they can provide several bags of insulation for DIY'ers.

[audiofanaticz]

If the garage walls are not finished (meaning no drywall, and just bare studs) I would check your local stores (home depot, lowes, menards, whatever is in your area) and check out pricing on the standard bat style insulation.

Looks like your garage door is a wooden one so for that matter you can pick up some Owens Corning pink foam board and cut it to size and glue it to the inside of the garage door. It cuts easy with a razor blade and the thicker you get it, the higher the R value.

But if you get it too thick you may have to 45 the corners a little so when the garage door opens it doesnt bind up against each other.

That stuff seems to go on sale a lot during the summer, so it would be easy for you to install that yourself.

Also for the blow-in insulation, you can sometimes rent those machines and do it yourself as well if you have a grand rental station or something similar that rents tools.

Maybe worth checking it out, even if you have to drive 30 minutes from a neighboring town to get it, instead of paying someone else to come do it.

Just suggestions.

[CstrokerV]

you can see if there is any local handyman and see how much they will charge or even a local contractor.. if they do from the inside tell them you will do the sanding and painting 

[ShadeTreeMechanic]

Are the walls in your house plaster? Its no fun to rip that stuff out. The blown in stuff does whatever it does and that's what you get. It sure beats tearing the walls out though. Along with all the other suggestions, you might be able to add insulation under the floor of the house too.

[boomintahoe]

Yup, I got a finished garage. Just no insulation in between walls. It's not required for the area. Wish the builders would have tho...it would make my garage a lil warmer.

 

No plaster walls....it's reg drywall. You guys might get a kick out of this: you can easily tell there's some spots of wallpaper in a few areas. Whoever painted the place to get it up on the market for sale just simply painted over. The best part, even the popcorn ceiling got painted too. I would not joke about that. I scraped most of the popcorn ceiling myself....what a pita that is, esp since it got painted.

 

My foundation is not a solid slab. It's a cinder block parameter foundation, if that makes sense. And I seen some insulation under the flooring when I went into the crawlspace a few times. My attic has plenty of insulation as well.

 

My garage is 2 car...400 sq ft. I swear it's the smallest 2 car garage. My boss at work, his I think is over 600. So his is oversize. Mines standard....sux. I think most newer homes built come with oversize garages.

[bcpballer64]

Also something you can do is get paint that actually has metallic flake in it and pain the underside of your roof sheeting in the attic, it creates radiant heat barrier. If you can get spray foam done through a small hole in walll that would be the top product for sure. Just an fyi most blown in insulation isn't supposed to be packed down because it works by the air that gets trapped between the pieces. Amazingly enough air space devoid of air (So a vacuum) is amazing insulation

[Soundfreezer79]

Replace your windows and inject Hilti foam in the gaps around the edges.  I'm in the same boat with a poorly insulated house.  My brother properly installed/replaced the windows and doors, did the Hilti foam treatment and now the house is much warmer.  Blown-in insulation is also a good option.   Good luck, I know how winters can suck...I live in Montana.