Hi, My house is 50 years old with aluminum siding (someday to be replaced). It is also very noisy. I drilled a hole in the outer wall and put a dowel in to see if there was any insulation. The dowel went all the way out to the outer wall with no resistance. Two insulation contractors have told me that there is insulation there, 'you just can't see it'. Huh? They claim that is was put in at one point. But if I get dead air by pushing the dowel through to the outer wall, then how can this be? Any info you can give would be appreciated. Thanks!

We are having our basement finished and our builder originally proposed R-30 insulation. When the insulation arrived, it was both R-13 and R-19 and we were told that we didn't really need R-30 in a basement in Georgia and we agreed. The question is, how much of a difference should we expect to get refunded due to this change. Our finished basement is about 4500 SF, walls and ceilings that will be insulated. He has told us that the difference will be approximately 10%, but we've checked around and been told that the markup from R-19 to R-30 is around 50% on average, whether you buy it from Home Depot or directly from an Insulation Company and have them install it. He has contracted an Insulation Company, so in our opinion,we are due the base difference in price between the types. Are we being scammed? We've not resolved this with him yet, but any help would be greatly appreciated. Jim