Insulation Retrofit

What Does Insulation Retrofit Mean

Retrofitting a house is upgrading it so it will "keep the heat in". At Friction Fit Insulation, this means adding insulation, and air sealing to the existing structure where possible.

Walls

In older homes, the first thing you can do is check to see if there is already insulation in the wall cavities. One way to determine if there is insulation in the wall cavities (in which case there is nothing that can be done without gutting the walls) or if they are empty, is to drill a 1/4" hole in an outside wall in an out of the way location. Take a piece of wire (coat hanger wire works well) and carefully slide it into the open cavity. If there is any insulation, you should be able to feel it when you slide the wire into the hole. The small hole can be easily patched.

If there is no insulation present we can insulate the walls from the inside (through gypsum board or lath and plaster) without tearing them out by drilling 1 inch diameter holes between the studs and installing blown-in cellulose fiber. Our installers using the required amount of air pressure will blow the insulation into the wall cavities tight enough so that very little settlement of the insulation occurs. The holes can be patched with drywall compound.

Walls with exterior brick veneer can be retrofitted by drilling 1 inch diameter holes at the intersection of mortar joints, starting one and a half bricks from the corner, using a masonry bit.

Once the cavity is opened, it is filled with cellulose. Each successive stud is found and the void is filled with blown-in cellulose insulation. The holes are then patched with mortar, and dyed as required to match as closely as possible the original colour.

Typically two rows of holes are drilled per floor to ensure complete filling of the stud cavities. In older homes wooden firestops were sometimes installed at mid wall height, cross bracing, and sometimes excessive cementitious base coats extruded between lath can prevent the fiber from reaching the bottom of the stud cavities.

Vinyl Sided Homes

The vinyl sided homes can also be insulated from the outside. The vinyl siding can be lifted up (with a zip tool) and the holes drilled behind the siding. Holes are drilled between the studs and the cavities filled with cellulose in the same manner as the brick house. Once the cavities are full the siding is zipped back together. This process of lifting the vinyl siding can be performed by a siding contractor.

Attics

Friction Fit Insulations can provide homeowners with blown-in loose fill insulation for the attic. This type of insulation provides a monolithic layer throughout the attic eliminating heat loss at gaps and thermal bridges such as roof rafters or ceiling joists. There are a variety of products available for insulating attics but we have chosen two types which we believe meet the needs of our customers and their applications best. These include cellulose and fiber glass. We use Climatizer Plus cellulose, and Owens Corning fiber glass insulations. For further information on these products please check out our Links page.

Crawlspace/Floors

Cold floors are a symptom of uncontrolled air leakage. This air leakage can occur at either the header location or directly through concrete block walls. Therefore in either the basement or the crawlspace, the outside walls including the header should be insulated with either Sealection 500 or Insul-Barrier sprayed-in-place polyurethane foams. Both of these insulations will provide the air seal necessary to control the temperature within the basement/crawlspace.

In each of the above retrofit applications it is always advised that a technical representative from Friction Fit Insulation be contacted to inspect and make recommendations most suited for your project. Consultation and estimates are provided free of charge.