So I've posted on here several times with questions about this or that, but every time I go to start on one project, I'm finding a new one that needs done first. The latest started out as a simple wifi problem in the house. So I decide I'm going to snake a cat5 cable into the basement, slap up wall plates, and we're done. 20 minute project. Well I punch my hole in the wall and decided to send a glow rod into the wall to probe for existing holes in the sill(think thats the name?) on an exterior wall since there was already existing cabling there. I sent about 10 ft of glow rod in, and go into the basement and theres nothing there. So being puzzled I do the logical thing, I check to see what pipes are coming in from outside to use as a reference, then I go outside to see where those pipes are at, and low and behold all 10ft of glow rod is laying in my yard. Conclusion: The construction of my house is in order from inside to out; drywall, studs, insulation board of some thin type, and siding. Notice there is no plywood or insulation mentioned in there other than the thin board that was easily poked through. This also answered why my gas bill is about 500/month in the winters. So here's what I've been researching thus far. It appears the cheapest option for me at this point, although still not very cheap, is to rent a blow in insulation deal and poke holes between each stud space and blow in insulation all around the exterior of the house. Sound about right? But when I do this, I'm going to have hose sized holes all over the house, 2 on each stud space, one at waist high, and one up towards the ceiling. I'm assuming this is going to look like crap when I go to patch all those holes back up. Any thoughts?

Hi all Within the next week I will be air sealing and insulating my attic. In a previous post, I was actually going to reside my home and then reinsulate my walls. However, this fell through as the cost for residing would have been too high. Nevertheless, the insulation of my walls got me thinking about insulation in other areas of my house, and after much research, I realized that the attic is a high priority location. Currently in my attic I have a very thin layer of some sort of blown in insulation that is covered by a sheet of fiberglass insulation. The top of the insulation is even with the joists, which are 2x6, and according to my calculations, this gives the insulation about an R-value of 15-19. My zip code is 53220, and therefore the recommendation for me is to upgrade to an R-value of about 49-60. My plan is to add additional R-38 insulation, but I have numerous questions. 1. When I air seal, I plan to: Caulk all partition wall top plates where they meet the drywall Caulk all lighting boxes KOs and gaps around the drywall with high heat fire caulk Fill pipe and wire penetrations with fire block spray foam or fire caulk where appropriate Seal my kitchen exhaust vent duct work with aluminum foil tape Install rafter baffles and provide blocking to prevent insulation from blocking the soffit ventilation Seal the attic hatch door Seal around the chimney with sheet metal and fire caulk I may also remove all receptacles and switches (on both interior and exterior walls) and caulk/foam gaps between the drywall and box. Am I missing any areas? 2. There is no vapor barrier in my attic. However, I am aware that there is some debate over the necessity of the vapor barrier (especially if the ceiling is painted and air sealing is completed in the attic). I have read from some previous posts that the only real way to apply a vapor barrier would be to rip out the ceiling and install plastic, but I will not take this approach. Yet, given my cold climate location, I am unsure if this is going to be sufficient. Could anyone provide their opinion? 3. I was originally going to install additional R-38 fiberglass batts in the attic, but I have read that blown in cellulose has numerous advantages over the batts. Since I have a lot of existing FG batt insulation in the attic already, is it okay to (after I air seal) place the FG batts back in the joist bays and then blow cellulose over the FG batts? 4. I am unsure if I have enough attic ventilation. Currently on my soffits I have a total of 3 vents; two on the sides of the house, and 1 in the back. All are about 1 square foot each. This gives me a total of about 3 square feet for an approximately 800 square foot attic. I do not know if this is enough, especially since I have been reading about NFVA and how the dimensions affect the airflow. On my hip roof, I have 2 vents, each measure about 1 square foot, although I do not know how the NFVA would even be calculated from this. Although I have read that you need about 1 square foot NFVA for every 300 square feet of attic space (which I have), my concern for attic ventilation comes from this winter when I was in my attic and I noticed that the nail tips were all frosted. Pretty much every nail had frost on it. I believe this has been occurring for years, but fortunately I have not noticed any water damage. From my understanding, this means that there is air leaking into the attic and a result of the condensation of the rising vapors on the cold nails. I am unsure if more ventilation is necessary, especially after I air seal, so I would appreciate an opinion regarding about whether or not I should add more attic vents before I begin air sealing and insulation, or just wait for winter again. 5. There is currently about a 10’x10’ section that has scrap wood floor boards attached to the ceiling joists that is used to support storage. Underneath is fiberglass insulation (about R-15) installed flush with the joists. Can I just remove the items that are stored on the wood floor boards and just blow in cellulose on top of the boards? My reason for not wanting to remove the boards is because I may want to store stuff in the attic in the future, and would just brush the insulation over (I understand this is not optimal, but it is a compromise for storage). Thanks in advance, and if necessary I can run outside or up in the attic and take photos by tomorrow.