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!

Get Your Paint On

As Jason mentioned a few posts ago, our time has come to attack the exterior of our home. We've done quite a bit of landscaping planting lots of pretty things, but we've done nada to the actual exterior of the house (aside from maiming it with new openings and a particularly nasty repair job to one window that was removed). So with the Village lighting a fire under our feet, we've gotten bids from four companies to do the painting. Now we just have to choose colors.

Ah, color choices. Always so intimidating. But our scope got limited b/c, according tot the quotes we rec'd, looks like we can't afford to get the vinyl siding painted. Which really is too bad - the best color schemes we've been playing with involved a new color on the siding. So the white will have to stay. So we ordered the Bungalow Exterior book, and using a very very old exterior shot (and hence none of our pretty flowers to get in the way!) have been playing around using Sherwin Williams Historic Arts & Crafts Collection - they have a really nifty paint tool that even gives the RGB values to duplicate the colors (great for Photoshop-ing your house).

Anyways, at midnight last night we decided to stop playing and just do. Not so sure what these are looking like in the light of day, but with the help of Bungalow Colors: Exteriors, we've come up with the following color schemes:

(click any photo to view a larger image)

OPTION ONE	OPTION TWO
OPTION THREE	OPTION FOUR

Of course, there's also the option of keeping the stucco white, with a fresh coat on everything ... maybe adding green to the trim on the windows instead of just the brown ...


Inquiring minds want to know - which one do you like? Or do you abhor them all? We need second, third, twenty-seventh opinions. :)

Our Painting's Time has Come

Last week we received a letter we'd been dreading for awhile. Our village has a Property Standards department, and every few years they take a "neighborhood walk" and cite homes that are in violation of miscellaneous dangers such as missing downspouts, rotted wood, missing handrails, garages in need of repair, missing address numbers, and improper parking surfaces (e.g. your lawn).

Well, what did they find when they came around to Humphrey House? A Violation waiting to happen! Yes, our poor, hapless paint has seen much better days. While I don't have any closeup photos of our currently dire straits, there are many posts from the past with photos that give you an idea. We've known all along that painting was going to be inevitable - Jen even created some super neat color scheme ideas when we first moved in. But now its official:

"Scrape/paint the wood members on the home, fascia, soffit, trim, and front entrance. Reinspection: August"

Gulp. So now its back to the color drawing board. In fact we ordered a book specifically focused on bungalow exterior colors. This looks like an involved project with a quick timeline, and we may have to call in some professionals. Maybe we can even find some stucco-friendly and eco-friendly exterior paints for Humphrey House's facelift.