Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Insulation and homeimprovement

Should I tear out the walls and start over?

trivia genius — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:10:27 -0800

I live in a one-floor condo unit that was, to put it mildly, poorly built. I, and all my neighbors, have dealt with too many issues to count regarding insulation, wiring, and even window and door frames. I'm no longer satisfied fixing things one at a time... My condo is a one-floor unit, 2 bedrooms (1500 sf total), with units above mine and garages with storage rooms below. Through trial and error, my neighbors and I have discovered that our building was poorly constructed.
Here is a sampling of the issues:
-entire swaths of exterior walls are missing insulation (in multiple units)
-storage rooms in the basement area (which each belong to a single unit) aren't all properly wired to the owner unit's breaker box. My storage unit is on my upstairs neighbor's box, but his and another unit's are both wired to mine. Luckily they don't have anything plugged in down there.
-light switches in bedrooms that aren't wired to any wall outlets (there is no overhead lighting or even a cap in the ceiling that would indicate this is the purpose of the switch)
-light switches in hallway and kitchen that do nothing (or could be wired to another unit)
-poor-quality coax cable causing signal drops (cable co has determined signal strength and quality is excellent where cable enters building; quality drops are due to bad quality coax and inefficient splitting within the unit)
-door and window frames that are so crooked they all have drafts coming in around the frames (not from the windows themselves)

A few concerned neighbors and I have done some research and determined that we can't go after the original building or contractors for these issues (built in 1987), and that there aren't enough disgruntled owners to force the condo association to pay to remedy these situations for all affected units. So it's left to us to fix individually.

I think it would be brilliant, and cheaper in the long run, to rip out all the dry wall within my unit and solve all the problems at once. I could put in new insulation on the exterior walls, square all the door and window frames to eliminate drafts, and have an electrician fix and/or re-wire the problem switches, outlets, and circuits (plus move inconveniently placed outlets and put correct labels on the breakers!), string new coax and add Cat6 everywhere I think I'd want it.

Having an electrician come out to inspect and do all the work at once has to be cheaper than calling one in every time I hit my breaking point with a dead switch or outlet, right? Squaring the windows and doors to help eliminate drafts will save significant money in heating and cooling going forward, as will new and actually completed insulation. The addition of Cat6 and replaced coax would just be an added benefit, probably not enough to increase sale value but a good talking point for realtors down the road when we sell.

I don't have actual dollar figures, but I anticipate needing to spend money on the following:
-coax cable, Cat6 cable, and mounting/outlet supplies
-electrical supplies
-labor for electrician to fix and (re-)wire everything I need done
-insulation
-wall supplies (dry wall, tape, plaster, new baseboards and crown molding, etc)
-paint for finished walls

Between myself and family we can competently handle putting in new walls that won't look shoddy, so my primary concern for professional assistance is the electrical work.

I estimate that ripping everything down would take a full weekend, then I could have the electrician in for a few days (all week?) to do everything, then probably another full week to 10 days for the walls to go back up. So looks like 2-3 weeks total. I figure we'd only actually have to sleep elsewhere for a few of the nights, when there is too much dust or paint fumes in the air.

So tell me - am I crazy like a fox, or just plain crazy? What am I missing here that would make this project much larger and/or scarier than I've anticipated? Can anyone provide rough estimates for actual costs?

Drywall/Plasterboard and Insulation Installation help needed!

hazyjane — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 02:00:45 -0800

We live in a 160 year old stone house in Scotland that is really cold in winter. Please help me make it warmer? I've been told it's easy to take down the drywall/plasterboard, install insulation, and put more drywall/plasterboard up again. But is it? I'm not great with home improvement projects and my partner is even worse. We just really lack experience. So before I start tearing down anything I won't be able to put back up again, please either reassure me or talk me down.

Will we save a fortune over hiring a professional? Or will we just make a big mess and end up needing to pay more to be "bailed out." How hard is it compared to, say, hanging up wallpaper which I can do somewhat but am not great at.

Also, will we save a lot on our heating bills? We pay over £1100 per year to heat our house which is just a small two-bedroom cottage, and that's with us being out all day, wearing extra clothes inside, long underwear, etc and using an electric blanket at night instead of running the heat. It seems like a fortune. Would we be able to significantly reduce this and stay warmer?

Is this the easiest way to insulate? There is tons of insulation in the attic, it's just the walls that need help, I think. When it's windy outside it's even colder in the house which makes me think the wind is just blowing straight through the gaps in the stone and onto the plasterboard/drywall. Please help if you can - thank you!

Should we sand and prime holes in our walls or pay someone to do it?

kirkaracha — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 06:50:52 -0800

Should we sand and prime patched-up holes in our walls or hire someone to do it? We just had our 1,000-square-foot house insulated with blown-in insulation. Now we have 180 patched-up holes in our walls that need be sanded and primed before we repaint.

How difficult and time-consuming would it be to sand and prime the holes ourselves? If I estimate five minutes per hole, I get 15 hours; is that realistic?

We have one estimate for $1200. That seems like a lot for something we could theoretically do ourselves, especially when we have other upcoming projects that will require professional work.

Should we get another estimate, pay the $1200, or do it ourselves?

Temporarily insulate a drafty exterior door?

Knicke — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:20:19 -0800

My apartment's back exit has a windowed door (similar to this, although it's only a single door) and no storm door. It's drafty and I'd like to insulate it as much as I can, sans all but the most rudimentary carpentry skills. What's my best temporary solution? Yes, a storm door is probably the best option longterm, but my semi-absentee landlord is not going to get it taken care of by the time the snow flies. He's ok with me making minor improvements, etc. and lets me take supplies off the cost of rent.

I have access to some basic tools and a power drill/screwdriver, and am comfortable caulking, installing weatherstripping, etc. I almost think I could install a storm door myself (the tutorials don't look too bad!), but am leery of screwing up a $100+ project on someone else's property.

Snow makes it inconvenient to use the back door for most of the winter, so any solution that makes the door un-openable for the duration is fine. I don't care about aesthetics, although I'd prefer to be able to see out the windows at least occasionally.

Is there an equivalent of this product for a regular hinged door? Surely there's some way I can attach plastic sheeting to the exterior/interior frame without leaving a permanent residue?

Thanks for your help!

I guess Victorians had better blankets

Popular Ethics — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:27:26 -0800

Insulating my attic cathedral ceiling, but I'm trying to be (a little) cheap about it. Hi all

I'm planning to insulate the roof of my 2.5 storey Victorian house. There's currently no insulation whatsoever in the cathedral ceiling! Unfortunately the rafters are ridiculously small (real 2x4s, 16" O.C.) so there's not much room for insulation (and I don't want to lose what little headroom I've got up there). I'm removing the plaster Saturday, so the clock is ticking.

I have already had the spray foam quoted. 800 square feet of 3" thick polyurethane (about R18) would cost me almost $5000! That quote seemed high to me, but it was the cheapest of three quotes. I checked out the DIY urethane foam kits too. 800*4 board feet worth of the home kit polyurethane works out to $3500 (http://www.tigerfoam.ca/), which is a little cheaper but doesn't include labour.

I figure I can get R20 using 4" of rigid polystyrene foam (xps) for no more than $2500, without losing too much ceiling height. (The last inch would be across the bottom of the rafters.) My only question is how to ensure a good seal between the foam sheets and the rafters on the side. Would Great Stuff or PL300 work well? If so, how many inches of foam "bead" does a typical can cover so I can add it to my cost estimate?

For added detail, I was planning, if I used spray foam, not to leave any gap for ventilation (i.e. a "hot roof"), but to leave a 1" space for ventilation if I use XPS board.

Anyone have any experience with this?

I've reposted the question from a DIY forum which was getting little response. My apologies if that's not kosher

Insulating an antique attic

tyllwin — Thu, 13 May 2010 09:47:20 -0800

Help me save money and the planet by telling me about attic insulation? I live in Upstate New York. The house was built around 1900, and none of the owners in the last 110 years has bothered to insulate the attic, at all. (Nor much of anything else.) This isn't exactly energy efficient, as you can guess.

Now probably what I ought to do is to hire professionals to do the whole house, including ripping off the siding, insulating the walls, then redoing the siding, replacing the windows and so on. But I just had to replace a roof, and the economy of 2010 doesn't leave me wanting to incur another huge housing expense this year. But, it occurs to me that at least I can make a start by doing something about the attic on my own.

Any of the "do it yourself" guides I see, though, sort of assume things I don't see. I can't, for example, carefully trim rolls of insulation to fit between the rafters, because someone 50 or 60 years ago put down some plywood flooring over most of it. So I'll have to sort of stray from the beaten path. My thought was that if I simply cover every accessible inch of attic flooring/rafters with fiberglass rolls or batts, (being careful not to have anything touching any sort of chimney / exhaust) my solution will be imperfect -- but far better than the "nothing" I have now.

Am I missing something in thinking that way? Is there some way that this ends up being no real use at all, or worse yet, somehow harmful or dangerous?