no insulation at all

[Merber]

Hi I just purchased a small 1100 sq ft home as an investment. It has no insulation at all. I'm thinking insulating it with that blown in insulation. It's a little wood home 20 years old. I'm very tempted to do this myself but the fire hazard scared me a little since it's South Texas and it gets really hot during the summer. What is the best insulation type for this home? Foam? Cellulos? I've been reading up but need some guidance. Also about how much am I looking at if I hire someone to do this? About more less? Thanks in advance.

[Konrad Fischer]

may be helpful:

What we found out by testing (Lichtenfelser Experiment) in Germany and by comparing additional insulated appartement houses with the same houses in direct neighbourhood without any improvement ref. insulation:

There is no insulating effect compared with solid materials like wood and brick.

Googling for Lichtenfelser Experiment you can find a pic with a figure of our test, where we had only 10 min IR radiation from a redlight bulb on different insulation materials each 4 cm (From above in opposite ranking: Fiberglass, Styrofoam, Foamglass, Brick, Wood fiber board, gypsum card board, solid pinewood). The temperatures are measured on the back of the boards, fiberglass had 40 degrees increasing, solid wood none!

Besides the lightweight insulation has no capillar activity, what means this materials will never dry out the condensate what must go in, in spite of all vaporproofs, which will be moistured and moldy after some years as our experience shows. Have a look in this forum, there are many proofs.

So I recommend not to crumble or blow or spray some lightweight insulation in your construction, instead take solid wood boards if you must have a additional thermal insulation f.e. in attics. About 6-8 cm would be good. If you have a masonry or solid wood wall, no additional insulation is necessary at all. In summer cool, in winter warm, thats the effect of solid material enveloping the rooms.

Some explanations ref. radiation and heat conductivity:

The problem is the way to measure the R-value. Not many in building branche
knows how this is done. Warm air is ventilated to the proof material, cools off and is warmed again outside the 'proof box'. The amount of energy to rewarm is the base for the R-value. It tells only something about cooling of warm molecules on colder surface molecules of the test material.

But: Does the cooling of your hand on a steel plate and a carpet in your room with both room temperature say anything about the wandering of IR radiation through the materials?

Will sunlight - also an electromagnetical radiation - shine through an 1 cm board of styrofoam? And wood? So you can see what works best against IR
radiation. And it is IR radiation, what is reasonable for about 99% of temperature losses through material, believe it or not.

And what is going on in a heated room? In a 20 sqm room there are about 60 kgs heated air giving energy in the facade wall, but about 5-10 tons of IR-radiating wall surfaces, the radiation is nearly on the level of air temperature, you can measure it at the wall by IR-thermometer. So about 99% of the heat transport through materials is radiation (by photones/phonones).

So lightweighters in the building construction are a really pest and only a fake and hoax of 'our' industries and their obscene slaves in science and administration! They damage buildings, invests and - most important - make persons ill with asthma, allergy etc. Even in cellulose insulation is found mold after some time, in spite of all the poison (borates) they give in against it.

Thats the thing: No lightweighters as thermal insulation in and on the walls, in attics, under floors, in the foundations and so on. There is only one good purpose for those - as carpets, to keep the feet warm. Because the molecular contacts are fewer than the marbles on the floor can offer to the warm feet. And so there will be fewer thermal losses by direct molecular contacts. Inspite they have the same room temperature. You can prove that also by measuring with an simple IR thermometer.

Surprising? But true. And well known in earlier centuries from all building experts.

Look on the good old buildings. Modern craftsmanship and engineering is the biggest danger for them, isn't it?