Common Myths About Homes

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Originally Posted by phinsperger

Marcel, Not only can he not reuse the insulation by simply moving it from the attic floor to the roof deck, but even with supply and return ducts he will have a very hard time stabilizing the temp of this space with the rest of the house. Due to the rafter depth and head height, the attic floor will still end up having a higher R-value.

I would imagine at this point that the original attic ceiling was sprayed to achieve a R-38 min. and R-48 max. and continuing to spray the roof rafter spaces with the equivalent, would make that space pretty tight, and may require some ventilation.
Since all the gable vents and eave vents by now have been blocked, make-up air for the ventilation might be necessary.

You basically have created an igloo at this point with this scenario.

There is a design for air to air systems for this type of scenario, and actual vents to the exterior are installed in the exterior walls close to the ceilings, to actually let fresh air in to make up for the tightness of the building envelope.

Marcel
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[jmichalski]

Fact: An air-tight home eliminates uncontrolled air infiltration into the exterior walls, which is the real cause of both moisture and microbial problems.

Ummmm.....so no "real" moisture gets in except through the air? I have a big problem with that statement.

I have seen plenty of "real" moisture problems in fieldstone basements that are not related to the seal on the windows or doors, etc.

[phinsperger]

Marcel,

To make things worse, the house is actually a stone century home. Absolutley no insulation in the walls. 1.5' of stone, strapping and lath and plaster. Oil heat.

An what does he do? Pulls out all the old attic insulation (blown cell) and spends $3500 to spray foam the attic floor. Right over all the cloth insulated wiring.

This is one of the reasons why I think some products, spray foam, are over used. Now the next owner of that house has a lot more work to do to correct this error.

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Unreal, I would not want to be the next owner.

I wonder who is consulting him into doing that mess?

Marcel

[David A. Andersen]

There are half-truths in every one of thoes alleged "Facts".

Just as with the IR photo from their web site: There is over 90% of that photo that is not "heat loss" (which they are calling temperature loss).

What is temperature loss?
Temperature is a measurement of molecular movemet, not a unit of energy.

[Peter C. Russell]

Hi Dave, good point, kind of funny how their loosing heat through the shutters and not the windows. Not knowing what time of day this was taken my first thought is we are looking at reflection and not heat loss, to bad we couldn't move the picture angle to see better.

What do you think?

Pete

[David A. Andersen]

Hay Pete,

Made it back safe!

Have you "cleared the mechanism yet"?

Looks like about noon to me !!!!

At first glance it looks the same to me!

I got one wrong because Scott said not to change your answers!
Those acronyms!

[Peter C. Russell]

Originally Posted by dandersen

Hay Pete,

Made it back safe!

Have you "cleared the mechanism yet"?

Looks like about noon to me !!!!

At first glance it looks the same to me!

I got one wrong because Scott said not to change your answers!
Those acronyms!

Dave, that's great, I got more than one wrong but at least I remeber the theory, not sure what you meant by clear the mechanism.

PS glad to have met you and John from FL. let's stay in touch. Maybe we can get NACHI to give us IR guys our on thread, makes sense, the numbers are growing!

[David A. Andersen]

clear the mechanism.

A Keven Costner thing.

My head was so fogged out by the time I left!
I've been out of school too long! Stuff from the past came back to haunt me. Sometimes it's best to learn something new with no background. You don't read into things so deep.

I had a great time. Learned more than I thought I would in 3.5 days. They really need a BSIR-202 workshop.

Great meeting you guys.