A Complete Guide To Insulating an Old Home (For COLD CLIMATES)

A Guide To Moisture Management For Residential Remodels eBook: asiri-designs.com/shop/ols/products/moisture-manag…

Beautiful and detailed video. I don’t know if there’s better content out there than this on retrofits. It would be nice to work with more people like you who leave no stone unturned in the details. I’m interested in understanding the goals of the homeowner in a project like this. The costs of carrying out this retrofit are extremely high, essentially bringing the building back to existing framing on both sides. Plus major basement floor upgrade, roof upgrade. All interior gutted, probably new mechanicals, plumbing, rewire. Windows. Homeowners have to move out for a while. In my area (Vancouver, Bc) the budget would need to exceed 500000 CAD for retrofit + renovation depending on the size of home and many other factors. (Probably more) At some point the cost to many homeowners is unjustifiable. This homeowner must care about protecting the heritage of the building, sustainability, and have a very healthy budget. Great client type! Was this work actually carried out on this home?

This is invaluable, just bought my first house, not as old as the theoretical house here but a 1940s Cape Cod style with minimal insulation. Previous owners put mini splits and new windows in, other than that it's largely a clean slate for insulating. Thank you for this!

Personally I would avoid using borat salts indoors because they´re considered to be an endocrine disruptor, IE messes with your hormones. Other than that I think most of the solutions are good/sound. People often forget that the biggest energy leak is when your building is not air tight. Just making it air tight helps a lot! Insulating should come as the secondary solutions because, as you mentioned, it comes with a lot of potential moisture issues.

As a developping arch tech. This was very helpful

Expensive to rock wool and poly iso the whole thing, but this is a beautiful renovation explanation video!!! 👏

Love this channel mate. Nice work!

Phenomenal video. Thank you! 🙏🏻

My question concerns vented vs non-vented attics. I have a open vented attic, so it gets very cold in the winter. We do not currently have soffit ice jams that are very common here in Mass. We want to insulate the attic to retain heat to make it more useful for storage. My plan is to build vent channels, between the rafters, from the soffit to the peak, to allow cold air to still rise and cool the underside of roof deck. Then insulate inward of the vent channels, to hold heat in the attic. my plan is to seal the inside opening of the peak vent so that to the inside air doesn't escape, but the vented air can still exit the the peak vent. IN the summer we would open the peak vent completely so the the heat in the attic could escape. The alternative is to seal the attic and put insulation between the rafters, hoping that the roof will not get too warm, and cause melting-refreezing problems . Any thoughts ? Gerry

In cold climate ares its best practice to have a vented attic with moisture barrier at the ceiling. 6mm minimum. Baffles at roof line. Energy or thick assembly truss design over exterior walls. Good ridge vents. At least in the mountain west were the air is dry. Roof assembly in higher elevations get the cold roof design with a good air gap under shingles. Cheers from Montana.

I've seen a project where they jacked the rim joist up in sections to instal a dpm/air sealing gasket between it and the masonry. The building can move a lot before adding the exterior sheathing, as the old nailed board don't have the shear strength. Seems like a pretty good detail to me. Those borate plugs are dubios - I get using it for protecting end grain in for joist embedded in masonry wall (we have a lot of these in the UK), some even suggest using stainless steel plates to encourage localized thermal bridging to keep the end grain drier.

Excellent video again. Conditioned attics are great to run services. Yes, you have about ~30% more surface area to insulate, but air sealing the attic ceiling perfectly is really fiddly, saving the labour cost and liabilities alone is probably worth the extra insulation. Deep fascia detail can be addressed by extending the overhang. We have a lot of issues with not having a sufficient overhang, so this ends up protecting the buidling's facade from the rain more - the uplift issues do need to be considered too.

Thank a bunch for taking the time and educating me. What I’m looking for is the solution between the studs. You’re speaking jibrish to me because of my ignorance! What is a good brand or a particular item I can use to insulate between the studs. I have a two story house, upstairs not insulated, I’m only insulating the bottom floor, brick on the outside and drywall on the inside. 700 sqft downstairs and the upstairs mirrors the same surface so 1400 total. Thanks man 🙏🏼

Awesome stuff, thank you!!!

Can I ask what product(s) are available as capillary breaks between footing and foundation?

In the gable roof, can the 2by extensions you describe (for additional insulation) be added on to existing TJI rafters? Thx.

Would you consider Zip-R over the shiplap sheathing?

I'm curious about ways to fasten the joist extensions to the rafters. Anyone have an idea?

my 1920's house has ice daming issues at where the wall meets the roof less space between the wall and the deck compared to ur drawing. the heat transfer of the wall going up apears to be the cause is there much i can do? tried looking for zip system products but no one seems to stock it in canada all i can find is 100$ a sheet foam

This is so detailed. What if you have a brick house and for heritage reasons, cannot insulate from the outside? How do you insulate the brick wall to a NetZero standard?