Foundation Insulation Panels

Last year, a trip to Menards revealed a new product - rigid foam insulation panels 1.5 inches thick, in precut sizes 2 feet x 4 feet. Okay, not such a novel thing right? Well the neat part was that one side of the foam board has a pre-applied adhesive and stone granules had been fused into it, giving a nice finished look similar to stucco. Hey wait, Humphrey House is half stucco! How perfect.

This is exactly the thing that we needed to help make the finished part of our basement much more comfortable. I purchased enough of these to line the sides of our house, and started off this summer by applying this to the below-grade exposed foundation wall we have from the basement's exterior entrance. When you think about it, an exposed concrete foundation wall is like a big heat sink exposed to the elements - it sucks the heat right of the adjacent finished space.

The panels aren't the prettiest when assembled in this fashion over a large space, since they are only 2 feet by 4 feet. I needed several panels and some odd sized ones which led to some ugly gaps. I tried to solve this by caulking the seams and then applying some extra granules, but it just didn't look right, so instead I ended up using some of our leftover stucco paint and applied it to give it a uniform look. Not the best work I've done, but at least it was passable for a rear basement entrance. It can always be re-stuccoed if the quality ever really gets to me.

After doing the entrance, I wanted to keep the basement warmer in winter, so when we got a brief warm spell in December (long after all the landscaping was dead or dormant), I got some help to basically dig a trench on the outside of the house beside the foundation wall so the panels could be installed 2 feet down. Since our basement is partially above grade, and partially below, this means that about 80% of the wall surface area is insulated. Even better, by having these panels on the outside rather than insulating from the inside, there is less "thermal bridging" heat loss. For those interested in infrared and building science and want to learn more, check this out, or look at these in-depth resources.

Anyway, we did this installation during the winter months while plants were still dormant so there would be less trampling and damage to what little landscaping we have along the sides of our home. The panels were installed in early January, and made a pretty noticeable difference as the finished basement is no longer nearly as cold as it used to be, which makes sense. If you house loses heat at the same rate (heat moves from warm to cold), if your entire house is insulated everywhere except the basement, your heating dollars are going to heat the Earth as much if not more than your home.

After the project was completed, we started to have spring come and you can see things are blooming despite the fact that there was a lot of traffic and digging overwinter.


The only thing left will be to take some of the remnant pieces and scrape of the sand which I will again attempt to caulk into the seams to make everything appear continuous. In the meantime, we're enjoying a much more comfortable and cozy basement!

Extra Insulation the Natural Way

I read in today in the Chicago Tribune that the area has had snow cover since January 5 - nearly a month now! It reminded me of something I did a few weeks ago when the temperatures dropped below freezing and stayed that way for several days.

We had recently rearranged our basement, and as a result, I finally have a room of my own to call an office. But it has been a cold office. Very cold. So I wondered how I could help retain some of the heat in there. I recalled stories of eskimos using the natural insulation of snow in their igloos, and wondered how that would work to help keep in the heat for above-ground concrete foundation walls.

A bit of googling turned up confirmations that yes, you can indeed pack snow up against a foundation wall. However, there is a very important consideration: When temps get above freezing, you must shovel it away or deal with potential water in the basement!

Fair enough. I figured it was worth a shot, so before the deep freeze in January, I packed in snow from a recent storm up against the concrete foundation. I think it has helped somewhat. Especially from the howling winds and air infiltration that can come rushing in from the north and west. In comparing the basement's comfort during the recent deep freeze to the artic blast right we had right before Christmas (on the solstice in fact), I think our basement was equally as comfortable. In other words, it was not any colder with much colder outside temps.

Three weeks later, I'm happy to report that the snow is still packed in up against the wall. Although with a warm-up coming soon, it looks like I'll have to have the snow shovel at the ready.

Soy-Based Foam Insulation

Our kitchen will be the warmest and quietest place in our house, thanks to the new soy foam insulation now expanding in our walls. The stuff is really neat to see go in and even better once installed.
Soy-based foam is made by BioBased, and expands about 100 times its original size to fill every nook and cranny in the walls, better than any kind of rolled insulation. Unlike traditional fiberglass insulation, which even though it holds thermal energy in, teh foam also stops air leakage. This will be especially welcome in the cold and drafty kitchen nook addition (located over a crawlspace).

And no, just because it's made from soybeans doesn't mean it's edible to people (or critters for that matter). We chose a soy product because, while there are other spray foam insulation available, this is the only one that is not oil-based (urethane), and it is a water-based spray, so it truly is sustainable and green. It doesn't even smell bad when they're spraying it. Loking

For our project, we needed to get a minimum R-19 in the walls to meet code requirements, so we went with a "closed-cell" version, which provides an effective R-value of 5.5 per inch! What does all this mean? Well for our kitchen, we won't need to have as many heat leads cutting into the floor, and we should see a big impact in terms of lower utility bills. We may not drop 50% like a whole-house (new construction) would get, but it will still be significant for this old house.

And as we've also discovered, it's an awesome noise barrier. When we checked it out last night, the room was almost dead silent. It will be nice to not hear the ambulances running down our neighboring street on the way to the hospital anymore!


There is video on BioBased's website that shows much better than I can explain how this all works. But if you're in the Chicago area and interested in checking out soy foam insulation for your home project, I recommend contacting Renewable Resource Insulation to see how they might be able to help. One note: this does need to be applied to open-cavity walls (studs). They don't yet have a product that can be injected inside existing walls, but I'm told it's in the works.

Insulation Made of (Human?) Hair

Our kitchen's breakfast nook is a bump-out over a crawlspace next to our kitchen. We originally thought this was added on, but after peeling back layers of the house, we now realize this was part of the original home. This latest discovery helped confirm that. We had to remove an odd covering that was above the ceiling joists in the nook, and it turned out to be hair! Yes, indeed Hair! After removing this, our floor looked like Cousin It got a trim.


But what exactly is it? We had briefly seen hints of the mysterious building material, but nothing quite prepared me for seeing the whole thing on our floor. It was quite a hairy mess! (sorry, I couldn't resist a pun). For those curious about this material, it was basically a 1/2" of hair sandwiched between 2 layers of building paper. It was clearly very old and practically disintegrated on touch. Unfortunately I don't have any "before" photos of this, but it was placed (not fastened) above 1x6 boards running perpendicular the ceiling joists. Above the paper/hair sandwich, another run of 1x1's were nailed to other framing to hold the thing in place. Here's a photo:


I simply can't believe this was used. Especially since elsewhere in the home (e.g. the walls, floors) there is no insulation! Maybe this was an attempt to keep the naturally cooler addition warmer? It probably only had an R-value of like 1. Also, exactly what kind of hair is it? Part of me wants to take it and get it tested. Is it horse hair, or some other animal? Perhaps human? Maybe a long lost relative? Will I find the body belonging to this hair buried in the crawlspace? All very engaging questions, you be the judge.


Jen and I will be making a tight building envelope and having soy-based foam insulation installed in our walls (more on that later), but while we were getting estimates, one contractor said he had seen this only a few times and it was clearly a sign of a pre-1920 building technique (our house was built in 1912). Hair. I never would have believed it. I'm left in wonder.

Stop the press - before they catch on fire!

So we're passing a big hurdle in the way of renovating our bungalow attic. The last month or two have dragged on as we did a lot of the finish framing, and the insulation. My god, the insulation. No wonder contractors bidded it out so high. Dirty, time consuming work that never seemed to end. At least it was cooler as winter approached.

But significantly, we're about ready to have a drywall crew come in and cover up the walls at long last. We just needed to have the inspectors come by once more, for an insulation inspection. This is to verify that we actually did put the right levels in the building before closing up the walls. Initially, he liked what he saw - R19 in the kneewalls, and R38(!) in the ceilings. So we passed. Almost.

The insulation also includes a firestopping inspection, which requires a ASTM-rated caulkto be applied around openings between floors (conduit , plumbing, speaker wire, etc.) I know Mark's getting excited, but this is a special type of caulk that, when exposed to high
temperatures or direct fire, releases water vapor and forms a solid char and retards the spread
of fire. Otherwise, a fire on the floor below can get sucked up through the wall cavity like its a chimney. Plus, I got to caulk more over the weekend!

So anyway, today we got the official approval for the firestopping, and we're almost ready to move on. A few final pre-drywall punchlist items this weekend, and we'll be having 65 sheets of drywall dropped off before Monday.