More insulation fun!

Many thanks to my friend Sasha who came over and spent the morning with me on the front porch, insulating the ceiling. Sometime in November when it was getting cold I put up some temporary insulation. It was late one night and I was worried about it freezing - and more so, I was worried about damaging the radiant tubing running that was exposed to the elements out there. I tacked up a bunch of kraft-faced R19 insulation, but it was a one person hack job done at 9pm in the freezing cold. It worked though - the return temperature on the boiler rose about 10 degrees and I left it at that, until today.

As I’ve said previously, the plan had been to spray Icynene everywhere. That plan got nixed, and now we have fiberglass everywhere. R25 in the ceiling (that so seems like overkill, but whatever), and R13 in the walls. This is very similar R value to what the Icynene would have been. I’ve been using the plastic-encased batts and they install very easily. It’s easy to do a nice neat job.

Out on the front porch I was quite concerned about not heating the outside. That could get costly. In addition to the fiberglass I decided to use a foil-faced bubble-wrap insulation that claims to do a teriffic job at reflecting radiant heat. It was way more expensive than foil-faced bubble wrap should cost, but whatever. Once Sasha and I removed the temporary R19 we unrolled the bubble wrap and had it stapled up in no time. If it works, I’ll gladly say that it is great stuff. Easy to install, at least.

After lunch we got to installing the R25 fiberglass. This isn’t a fun job, plastic encasing or not, but it went pretty smoothly. The porch ceiling is now fully insulated, and ready to have the bead-board reinstalled - avid readers may recall we stripped the bead board of its cementatious-paint last summer.

More tomorrow - I wonder if can avoid doing more insulating…