Insulation Realization

Insulating the barn continues, and I finally got off my butt and worked on the kitchen area. It wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be, and it is light years easier than insulating the roof, which is angled and reaches all the way to the floor. Putting the insulation in up there was a bear of a job, though it makes doing the walls a piece of cake. In fact, I have been cruising along for the past couple of days and was about to do the final push when I realized a few things about the insulation, all good things.

I did some investigating into state requirements for insulation on newly constructed buildings, and learned that if you're planning on living in the house, you can pretty much do whatever you want. I sort of new this, but I just read up on it and found that you can forget about insulation if you want to, it will just come back to haunt you if you want to sell the unit, or of course in the winter time. The state has established extremely rigorous guidelines, so much so that I think it makes it almost prohibitively expensive to insulate a new house, at least for the average person. The rigidity comes into play if you're planning to sell the place, where you have to disclose what you've done and the buyer gets to decide if they'll accept it.

The point is, we'll insulate properly, but somehow knowing that Big Brother is not overseeing our every move makes it easier. I was also reminded that wall requirements are lower than ceiling requirements, which could save us some money. Originally I had planned on putting an extra layer of rigid board over the insulation to up the R-value, but I now think I can just put it over the ceiling. The walls are already at the required level, so all that's left is to drywall them. How cool is that?

Finally, the kitchen area needs to be addressed. I spoke with mom about it and we decided that since it's the one area of the house that has plumbing, we should insulate to a fault, which would mean rigid board, fiberglass, and then an additional layer of rigid board, just for good measure. I'm fine with this because it's a limited area and the cost and work would not be unthinkable. There are some issues with how the pipes have been installed, but I think I can modify it to make it more protected in the event of cold weather, I just need to get some verification from certain individuals. After that, I think we're ready to put in rigid board and then, if you can believe it, dry wall. Then again, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, counting chickens before they hatch and all.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Kelly and Debra Fuller for the pic.