Long time,.. no see

Sorry for the long delay... the blog kind of fell by the wayside.

Since my last post a lot has been done: insulation, drywall, plaster, paint, doors, wall plates, vents, etc, etc. Still to be done: tile, carpet, trim, media shelving, move-in.

The pic above is the office. The ones below are the bar and theater room. And the tile is the basketweave pattern in the bathroom and what will be in the foyer.

Ah Insulation Problems

So, I've been puzzled by some drafty cold air in our new house for several weeks now... and I think I may have finally found the problem.

The quick summary of the problem:
We have cold air coming out from under the baseboards on the 1st floor of the house, along the exterior walls.

The first theory:
My first thought was that the insulation below (in the ceiling of the basement) was not properly installed.

The first investigation:
Sure enough, I found that instead of the insulation following that ceiling to the wall, the turning 90 degrees and going down... it was instead "rounded off" (so to speak), such that there was an air gap where the ceiling meets the wall above the insulation. I fixed this by shoving the R-13 into the corners and cutting in new pieces of R-19 along the walls to make up the difference.

The first result:
The cold air seemed to go away. But I thought it may have just been because the weather had gotten a bit warmer. Sure enough. When it got cold again... the problem was worse than it was before. Yes, WORSE. I'll explain more later.

The second theory:
The place I was noticing it most was along the back wall of the 1st floor. I knew the house-flipper I bought the house from had re-done both rooms on the back of the house. So I thought perhaps the insulation had not been properly installed.

The second investigation:
There is a small 3-4 foot long area of wall between the cabinets in the kitchen and the door to the deck. I step in this area in my socks every morning, because that's where the scale I use to weigh my fat self is. I decided this was a great place to investigate. I removed the baseboard and then removed a small section of drywall that would be concealed entirely by the baseboard once it was re-installed. To my surprise the insulation did, in fact, come all the way down. I had postulated that the insulation had come short. The only problem I found was that the vapor barrier was not sealed to the floor. The lack of a seal there may well be a large part of the problem, but there's not really much I can do about it. For the time being I shoved as much fiberglass insulation in as many nooks and crannies as I could find in that area.

The second result:
That area is a good bit better, but it can still get a bit cold. A partial victory.

The third theory:
My brother was down a couple weeks ago and reminded me of a very simple fact: cold air moves downward. He postulated that my cold air problem was actually originating from above... in the attic. He mentioned some nifty little devices that people are supposed to install along exterior walls but are often left out. (I later found out that these are called baffles.) Basically, they are little "air gutters" that run vertically between the slanted rafters in the ceiling. They allow the air to flow from the rafter vents up to the top of the attic. The baffle ends about 2-3 feet above the top of your insulation. This essentially creates a giant "bowl" of cold air in the attic. Instead of the cold air hitting the insulation and spilling over the edges and down into the walls, it simply stays in the attic.

This would also explain why the first "fix" actually made the problem worse. When I shoved the insulation in the basement ceiling up farther, it stopped the air even sooner, so that it couldn't escape out of the exterior wall as easily. And thus, more of it was spilling out under the baseboards and into the house.

The third investigation:
I finally climbed my rickety ladder into the attic and found out... I do not have any baffles installed. Moreover, the attic in my new house is a twisted maze of 2x4s, pipes and insulation. Installing baffles is not going to be an easy job.

The third result:
I don't know yet. For now, I'm going to go buy some "caulk saver" foam rope and shove it between the baseboards and the floor on the exterior walls and see if that helps. (Essentially Jerry-rigging the seal that should have been in place as described in investigation #2.) If that doesn't help, I'm going to get to monkey my way around the attic and try to staple baffles in place while precariously positioned on the edges of boards. Then try to somehow install more insulation along the edges as well.

The good news is that this little problem will no longer delay the basement finishing.

Wish me luck...