Putting Insulation In Old Walls

When considering new insulation installation or home retrofit insulation many dc area homeowners wonder if it s necessary to remove the old insulation first.

Putting insulation in old walls.

The answer in many cases is yes. Includes cutting and fastening insulation and insulating around obstacles. Fiberglass batts foam or cellulose can be used to insulate the interior walls. Just because you find insulation in one wall doesn t mean that it s everywhere in the house.

You can often leave old insulation. Choose fiberglass insulation batting. Check outlets on all floors as well as old and new parts of your house. Walls both exterior and interior are the next area to insulate in a home.

Inspect and measure the thickness inches of any insulation in unfinished basement ceilings and walls or above crawlspaces. Insulation in house exterior walls is one of the primary defenses against heat and energy loss. There are various grades of insulating batting for different locations in the house so you ll need a different insulation for interior exterior attic or basement walls. So if your house was built before insulating walls became standard you can potentially save a great deal of energy by insulating.

The grade of batting will vary depending on the wall that you re insulating. Unfortunately however builders didn t insulate the walls of most homes built before the 1980s. The third area that needs proper insulation is the floors. But christine flynn and liz bagley aunt and niece owners of the 1916 two family house that is the current this old house tv project were facing just that until toh general contractor tom silva came along.

Fiberglass insulation is energy efficient affordable easy to install and readily available in a wide variety of sizes types and r values. The r value of the batt measures the thermal resistance so the higher the r value the more effectively. So can you put new insulation on top of old insulation. In a region where january temperatures consistently hover below freezing you really don t want to be living in a house with no insulation.

In a perfect world you would be able to unscrew invisible bolts remove drywall panels install insulation and reinstall the panels our less than perfect world of permanently attached wallboard means time consuming hacking away of gypsum individually removing drywall screws or nails installing r 13 or greater fiberglass roll insulation and re installing the drywall.