Anybody here a contractor?

[boomintahoe]

Soundfreezer79, are your eyes bad? Because that pic clearly shows vinyl windows. What I had before was those nasty grossly aluminum windows. Spent nearly 10k getting new windows and installed. There's only a few windows that still need replacing and thats the small tall narrow one near the 3710 numbers.....that's my foyer area. And the back bathroom.

Windows only help so much, and limited. What really is needed is insulation, which blocks in cold/heat from escaping thru the walls. And I mean thick insulation.

Perhaps the word "pack" was used improperly to describe the blown in insulation. I was trying to choose my words best I could. What about avoid and voids/gaps in between walls while doing the blown in insulation? I think that would be a better question.

@strangeduck any ideas man?

[8ten8]

Siding looks good don't mess with it. I suggest doing one room at a time from the inside. Get your total square footage per room and start pricing the material needed. R-13 insulation,1/2" sheet rock, tape, mud and a long T-square. One room at a time. When you have all your materials ready for that one room, grab a "helper" from your near by home improvement store. $80 per day plus lunch. Preferably one with enough english and knows sheet rock (most do). Demo and insulation could be done in a day, sheet rock and taping maby a or two, depending on how hard you work. Out with the old, in with the new 

 

 

[OrzechNJ]

I would not mess with siding.. it looks like vinyl siding and it's easy to break.. ( you have a lot of nails in each piece to take out).. If you think that interior of the house may need some work, just do one room at a time.. rip the old drywall off, clean , put new insulation, put new drywall on inspect exterior plywood from the inside, most likely it is not in best shape after being covered with tyvek for decades..

Doing it from the outside will be much more expensive, because you will need many new plywoods and siding pieces.. 

[Jessica]

i really dont know what to say, seems like if you want to do what you want its going to be expensive or difficult. I think pulling off your old siding and isnulating from the outside would be cheapest and easiest and less messy. On the other hand, tearing out trim, sheet rock, risking trashing your carpet and remodeling every room by tearing out sheet rock will be a pain.  Besides if you do that you are only doing outside walls, how are you going to match the old paint with new paint?  Home ownership can suck. How old is your furnace? maybe just upgrade it to a newer more efficient one will help. Did you say what you have for insulation in the attic?

[boomintahoe]

8 hours ago, OrzechNJ said:

I would not mess with siding.. it looks like vinyl siding and it's easy to break.. ( you have a lot of nails in each piece to take out).. If you think that interior of the house may need some work, just do one room at a time.. rip the old drywall off, clean , put new insulation, put new drywall on inspect exterior plywood from the inside, most likely it is not in best shape after being covered with tyvek for decades..

Doing it from the outside will be much more expensive, because you will need many new plywoods and siding pieces.. 

I'm guessing you missed the part where I said I have wooden siding...

[boomintahoe]

28 minutes ago, strangeduck said:

i really dont know what to say, seems like if you want to do what you want its going to be expensive or difficult. I think pulling off your old siding and isnulating from the outside would be cheapest and easiest and less messy. On the other hand, tearing out trim, sheet rock, risking trashing your carpet and remodeling every room by tearing out sheet rock will be a pain.  Besides if you do that you are only doing outside walls, how are you going to match the old paint with new paint?  Home ownership can suck. How old is your furnace? maybe just upgrade it to a newer more efficient one will help. Did you say what you have for insulation in the attic?

Exactly what I was thinking. It can get messy and doing this indoors, I'd have to barrier an area, plastic wrap over furniture and shit...kinda prepping everything like I'm about to paint a car. This way, outside, who cares. My walls? I got diff colors on each wall almost. I think I still got some paint leftover, prob expired by now.

My furnace, believe it or not, is over 30+ years old. It's a GE electric, forced air. It def needs to be replaced but I don't have 3k-4k to go get a new one plus instulation.

Gotta convince the wife to do this. Either stay warmer in the winter with a hopefully lower power bill or I go out and buy new subs? Take ya pick...lol

[CstrokerV]

i personally would just tape off a room one by one and rip up the inside  exterior wall...  doing it is relatively cheap when you do it yourself and a few friends or family members  sheet of drywall is 5-8 dollars a sheet 16 if you want the sound deadning one cant remember how much insulation is... pretty sure when i was estimating the room i am going to do it was around 300 and thats all 4 walls and insulating 2 of them... i could be wrong though it was last year when i was pricing.. and didnt keep the paper since i always redo shit later closer to the project date......   i see drywall went up a bit along with sheet rock so estimate is a little low for mine now

 

[OrzechNJ]

I did miss that part lol, either way it's gonna cost you more to do it form the outside than inside.

 

just think logically.. from the outside you have to take off siding , water proof , plywood.. from inside drywall only

[ShadeTreeMechanic]

12 hours ago, boomintahoe said:

Exactly what I was thinking. It can get messy and doing this indoors, I'd have to barrier an area, plastic wrap over furniture and shit...kinda prepping everything like I'm about to paint a car. This way, outside, who cares. My walls? I got diff colors on each wall almost. I think I still got some paint leftover, prob expired by now.

My furnace, believe it or not, is over 30+ years old. It's a GE electric, forced air. It def needs to be replaced but I don't have 3k-4k to go get a new one plus instulation.

Gotta convince the wife to do this. Either stay warmer in the winter with a hopefully lower power bill or I go out and buy new subs? Take ya pick...lol

Oh man electric furnace? I feel your pain. When I was a kid in the 70s our house had electric baseboard heat. I remember my dad complaining about a $600 electric bill. I now live in an old house built in the early 60s original insulation, plaster walls and vinyl windows. We switched from an oil furnace to natural gas and it made a huge difference. I should have done it 10 years ago. Your biggest bang for the buck would be to get a gas furnace. Second best would be a heat pump.

[audiofanaticz]

Aint no point of tearing out the bat insulation if your blowing insulation in.
Also depending on the thickness of your walls (depth wise) you should technically only use a certain R value because it needs room to breath.
You do not want to use a higher r value that is thicker and compress the insulation tight to fit in your walls. It defeats the purpose of it and lowers the r value when compressed.
So what you have maybe the ideal bat insulation. Sadly its hard to say unless you do open a wall up and check. Lets say if what you got is ideal and you tear it out for a thicker higher r value insulation and compress it, it maybe no difference than what you currently have.

Where as the blown-in stuff works due to compressing the cavity unlike the batted insulation.

Or if you go the spray-in foam way which is solid and you cant put an r value on it due to the r value being a resistance to air to pass through it, and since air wont pass through a sealed closed cell foam there is no comparison.