Anybody insulated a board and batten home from the interior? Any suggestions on vapour barriers or insulation types would be appreciated. I'm restoring an 1870 home and the outer boards are in good shape so I was going to tear out the inside to renovate.

-- Steve Lindsay (sklindsay@accglobal.net), October 29, 2001

Answers

Assuming you're in a climate where you need to heat the interior of the house, it's important to place a vapor barrier on the interior side of the insulation. This can be as simple as PVA primer, if the walls are painted sheetrock. Otherwise, visqueen is the vapor barrier of choice.

The idea is to make sure that the high humidity air caused by cooking, showering, breathing, etc. does not move far enough into the wall to reach its dew point.

JOJ

-- joj (jump@off.c), October 29, 2001.

Steve you might want to look at blown in sticky cellulose for the walls. You can blow in regular cellulose yourself for the ceiling.

Both kinds have non-toxic borate added for fire protection & fungus/mold protection

Blown in sticky cellulose also has a bit of non-toxic adhesive added so that it will adhere to each other and to the wall cavity. You do have to let it dry for a day(a couple if its raining outside).

It also has the big advantage of being much more energy efficient than fiberglass and fills in all the small gaps which prevents air infiltration both ways. Some contracters say that you don't need a inner vapor barrier with it because it prevents air infiltration so well. I don't know if I would go that far because I still would not want any additional moisture in the wall cavity. However you wouldn't need any vapor barrier in a inner wall partion that you insulate for sound.

The only downside of blown in sticky cellulose is that you pay for the installation. However its only about 50% more than fiberglass and you will more than get that back in the first couple years due to its increased energy efficiency plus its much quicker than installing it yourself.

Michael C

-- Michael C (noemailspamon@webposts.com), January 20, 2002.