Cold Second Floor
#1
11-22-08, 12:26 PM
Cold Second Floor
My house is a typical 2 storey house with the bedrooms on the top floor, living / dining / kitchen etc on the main floor and of course there is a basement. The exterior is stone up to about 7 feet from the ground and the rest is aluminium siding. The house is about 20 years old
The floor on the 2nd floor has always been cold and when I was renovating the master bathroom I had to cut a section of the floor to modify the plumbing. There I noticed that a lot of cold air was coming from in between the floor joist and there was no insulation.
My questions:
1. Does the space between the joists under the 2nd floor needs to be ventilated and if yes what is the reason?
2. Can I install Fiberglas insulation (which will obstruct the ventilation) in between the joists?
Thank you
The floor on the 2nd floor has always been cold and when I was renovating the master bathroom I had to cut a section of the floor to modify the plumbing. There I noticed that a lot of cold air was coming from in between the floor joist and there was no insulation.
My questions:
1. Does the space between the joists under the 2nd floor needs to be ventilated and if yes what is the reason?
2. Can I install Fiberglas insulation (which will obstruct the ventilation) in between the joists?
Thank you
#2
11-22-08, 03:42 PM
The space between the floors is definitely not ventilated. You have serious air infiltration problem from the outside. If you can insulate, do so, but address the air infiltration while you are at it.
#4
12-06-08, 11:51 AM
More than likely the problem is that the joist band board is not insulated. There was a point in time that builders did not insulate this area. They simply insulated the walls, attic areas.
#5
12-07-08, 07:34 PM
If you just drop fiberglass in there it will do little to nothing to stop the air since fiberglass alone just filters and wont block air from flowing thru it. I had this same problem and drilled small holes in the ceiling from below and then blew in dense packed cellulose with a fill tube to solve the issue.
