WEBVTT 00:00:01.570 --> 00:00:10.109 - Weatherproofing workshop. My name is Noah Sandweiss and I'm the historic preservation program manager 00:00:10.109 --> 00:00:18.565 - for the city of Bloomington. Tomorrow is going to mark the beginning of historic preservation month, 00:00:18.565 --> 00:00:27.020 - which is May. And our thoughts are once again turning toward cold weather and winter. So we're going 00:00:27.020 --> 00:00:28.862 - to be having a little 00:00:29.314 --> 00:00:37.421 - weatherization workshop here with Electrify Indiana. So I'm going to let Madeline Hershland take it 00:00:37.421 --> 00:00:45.934 - away with introducing this organization and giving a little low down on what they do. Great. Noah, thank 00:00:45.934 --> 00:00:54.366 - you so much. And thank you so much for organizing this session. It's really wonderful to be partnering. 00:00:55.170 --> 00:01:02.188 - Yeah, I just want to very briefly say who we are and then pass it over to Greg. I am with Electrify 00:01:02.188 --> 00:01:09.486 - Indiana, the co-chair of the board. And we are a vendor with the city of Bloomington on the Bloomington 00:01:09.486 --> 00:01:16.644 - Energy Works program, energy navigator program. So we're working with homes to help them reduce their 00:01:16.644 --> 00:01:22.398 - energy use. One of the primary ways to do that is through sealing and insulating. 00:01:23.010 --> 00:01:29.684 - We're just very grateful to the city for enabling us to do this. Our mission is to help homes all over 00:01:29.684 --> 00:01:36.229 - the state quickly know that they should switch to electric equipment when the time comes that things 00:01:36.229 --> 00:01:42.709 - start to break down, like a furnace, a gas water heater, a gas stove, or a gas dryer. So we're very 00:01:42.709 --> 00:01:46.078 - happy to provide you with any information you want. 00:01:46.178 --> 00:01:54.661 - and just sign up outside or email us at electrifyindiana.gmail.com. So with no further ado, I want to 00:01:54.661 --> 00:02:02.978 - introduce Greg Diemer, who is a builder who specializes in his expertise in sealing and insulating. 00:02:02.978 --> 00:02:11.627 - And I'm just going to pass it over. We're very, very, very grateful to you, Greg, for joining us today. 00:02:11.627 --> 00:02:12.958 - Thank you. Yes. 00:02:18.498 --> 00:02:27.973 - were not my fireworks and I wasn't near that mailbox. Oh, okay, that didn't work. That's how I did the 00:02:27.973 --> 00:02:37.447 - sound test. Your honor, those were not my fireworks and I was not near that mailbox. So, yeah, my name 00:02:37.447 --> 00:02:44.990 - is Greg Diemer and I've been a builder here in Bloomington for about 30 years and 00:02:45.378 --> 00:02:53.873 - I worked on all kinds of houses from new to very old. And so I've seen a lot of how houses work and 00:02:53.873 --> 00:03:02.622 - don't work. So the goals for this talk I'm getting tonight are understanding your house so that we can 00:03:02.622 --> 00:03:11.202 - have stewardship of both houses and the planet. So stewardship is something important to think about 00:03:11.202 --> 00:03:14.430 - when we're taking care of our houses, 00:03:14.882 --> 00:03:23.673 - You're not the first person that's owned it generally and you're not gonna be the last. So we wanna 00:03:23.673 --> 00:03:32.464 - think in terms of the future when we're doing things to houses. Second one is we wanna know what to 00:03:32.464 --> 00:03:41.255 - ask of pros you might hire because they're also learning as they go. And then the third thing is do 00:03:41.255 --> 00:03:42.398 - it yourself. 00:03:43.554 --> 00:03:52.578 - So there are lots of details. It's not physically easy, but it's not the space shuttle. So also see 00:03:52.578 --> 00:04:02.054 - the caveats later, we'll talk about what could cause fires. So building science, what is it? It involves 00:04:02.054 --> 00:04:11.710 - physics, the physics of heat and moisture, as well as biology and chemistry for making healthy and durable 00:04:12.002 --> 00:04:21.543 - an energy efficient shelter. So building science causes some people anxiety. You don't want to think 00:04:21.543 --> 00:04:31.461 - about your house rotting or not performing right or being expensive to fix. So I brought along a support 00:04:31.461 --> 00:04:41.758 - animal here. This is the BS bear. So if you start to feel nervous, just look at the BS bear and it'll be OK. 00:04:43.298 --> 00:04:51.277 - I was going around looking for a shirt for my bear. And I found this little paper bag. And it brought 00:04:51.277 --> 00:04:59.177 - back a memory of my grandpa. When I was little, he cut up a grocery bag and put it on me when he was 00:04:59.177 --> 00:05:07.234 - taking me to the grocery. So grandpa was sober for the last 20 years of his life. So he had that going 00:05:07.234 --> 00:05:08.798 - for him after that. 00:05:15.522 --> 00:05:24.333 - Why build tight as possible? Or why air leakage is a problem? So the word tightness was kind of a poor 00:05:24.333 --> 00:05:32.973 - choice because it doesn't make you feel good. So another better way, I think, to say it is you don't 00:05:32.973 --> 00:05:41.699 - want your house to leak air. So reasons for building tight. Air leaks take away energy and money. And 00:05:41.699 --> 00:05:44.094 - they bring in polluted air. 00:05:44.866 --> 00:05:55.108 - Air that has emit pollen, exhaust, fiberglass, mouse turds, radon. And they also, air leaks also move 00:05:55.108 --> 00:06:05.249 - warm, moist air into your wall assemblies and roof assemblies where it can cause mold and rot. So we 00:06:05.249 --> 00:06:12.478 - want to try to limit air leaks. So the other thing about insulation is, 00:06:13.762 --> 00:06:21.585 - Solar lasts decades, while insulation can last centuries. So it's a really good investment. If it's 00:06:21.585 --> 00:06:29.486 - done right, it can continue to pay for generations to come without any additional maintenance to it. 00:06:29.486 --> 00:06:37.622 - So there's a lot of opposition to building tight. A lot of people are just, they have a reflex and many 00:06:37.622 --> 00:06:42.942 - builders, and less so every day, I think builders are coming around 00:06:43.394 --> 00:06:52.150 - to accepting it, but why do we have this opposition? So people will say we need natural ventilation. 00:06:52.150 --> 00:07:01.080 - Maybe, but I would say not through filth. So you don't want it coming through your walls or up through 00:07:01.080 --> 00:07:09.749 - the dirt in your crawl space. So there's a natural ventilation feature that comes with every house. 00:07:09.749 --> 00:07:12.350 - Does anybody know what it is? 00:07:13.538 --> 00:07:21.999 - Windows, yes. So you can open your windows at any time if you feel like you want natural ventilation 00:07:21.999 --> 00:07:30.461 - and you'll get a lot of it. So people also say you will suffocate. That's not like actually possible 00:07:30.461 --> 00:07:38.922 - because houses are just not that tight that you can run out of oxygen. So air quality issues need to 00:07:38.922 --> 00:07:41.854 - be addressed because if you're not 00:07:42.498 --> 00:07:50.745 - moving air in by having your windows open, pollutants build up and moisture can build up as well. So 00:07:50.745 --> 00:07:58.911 - pros are often trained to worry about things like the paint color and the speed of construction. We 00:07:58.911 --> 00:08:07.566 - need to ask more of them and we need to let them know that we're willing to pay for tighter construction. 00:08:07.566 --> 00:08:11.486 - The final thing on opposition to building tight 00:08:12.098 --> 00:08:20.596 - It's a fact that adding insulation slows drying. When you have less heat flow through materials, they 00:08:20.596 --> 00:08:29.177 - dry less quickly. So this must be done with care. You have to make sure things don't get wet, and then 00:08:29.177 --> 00:08:38.342 - you have to build things in a way that they can dry if they do get wet. New construction or old construction. 00:08:38.342 --> 00:08:41.758 - Yeah, you don't want anything to be wet. 00:08:42.050 --> 00:08:50.726 - for long periods of time. They say that houses need to dry, but they don't need to breathe. People need 00:08:50.726 --> 00:08:59.235 - to breathe. So how do you get fresh air when you don't want to open your windows? Let's say it's like 00:08:59.235 --> 00:09:07.660 - 20 degrees outside. There's a very clever device that's been around for a long time called an energy 00:09:07.660 --> 00:09:11.998 - recovery ventilator, or ERV. And it has fans on it. 00:09:12.386 --> 00:09:20.638 - It brings in, it exhausts stale air and brings in fresh air and it passes the streams without mixing 00:09:20.638 --> 00:09:29.135 - them where heat can go from one to the other. So it can recover 70 to 80% of the heat from the air that 00:09:29.135 --> 00:09:37.714 - you're exhausting. And if you have on it a MERV 13 filter, the air it's bringing in will not have pollen 00:09:37.714 --> 00:09:40.574 - in it and it can also remove smoke 00:09:41.538 --> 00:09:48.824 - other kinds of pollution that might be high outside. You can also have a timer on it so it turns off, 00:09:48.824 --> 00:09:56.038 - say during rush hour when there's a lot of exhaust around your house, you might just turn it off for 00:09:56.038 --> 00:10:03.181 - those two hours and then the exhaust won't come in your house. I'd also like to say if anyone has a 00:10:03.181 --> 00:10:11.038 - question or an interjection, I'd like them to just come throughout the thing. That'll help keep people awake. 00:10:11.938 --> 00:10:22.811 - Because if building anxiety doesn't make you anxious, it might make you sleepy. Or it could be the CO2 00:10:22.811 --> 00:10:33.473 - in here. It's at 1,000, but you're supposed to be at under 1,000. So this is a CO2 meter that I just 00:10:33.473 --> 00:10:40.862 - picked up there. Okay, so does anyone have any questions so far? Yes? 00:11:08.418 --> 00:11:17.752 - haven't heard of that exactly. No, I haven't heard of that. An ERV that's a bath fan. You can suck air 00:11:17.752 --> 00:11:27.267 - out of your bathroom with an ERV. The one thing you have to do there is make sure the ERV stays on until 00:11:27.267 --> 00:11:35.966 - all the moisture is out of it, because it can make your core in the ERV get moldy if you don't. 00:11:36.418 --> 00:11:43.770 - So there's some discussion that you don't need bath fans if you have an ERV in your house. But ERVs 00:11:43.770 --> 00:11:51.342 - also exchange moisture across the air streams. So in the summertime, they'll dry the incoming air. And 00:11:51.342 --> 00:11:59.135 - in the wintertime, they'll moisten the incoming air. They don't do it at 100%. So there is still a drying 00:11:59.135 --> 00:12:05.310 - effect in the house from the ERV. When we were running this winter when it was out, 00:12:05.634 --> 00:12:13.672 - colder it gets the drier the air is outside. We got our relative humidity down to 30% which was the 00:12:13.672 --> 00:12:21.790 - driest I've ever seen it in the winter in that house before we had an ERV. So there's another device 00:12:21.790 --> 00:12:29.747 - similar to an ERV called the HRV and that's a heat recovery ventilator. It doesn't have a moisture 00:12:29.747 --> 00:12:35.454 - transferring ability. So 30 years ago they were recommending those for 00:12:35.842 --> 00:12:47.075 - cold climates, which were kind of a mixed climate here. But anymore, the ERVs, every place but Alaska, 00:12:47.075 --> 00:12:58.743 - they're recommending an ERV because you want that moisture exchange when it's humid out in the summertime. 00:12:58.743 --> 00:13:04.414 - New models of ERVs have what's called an ECM motor. 00:13:04.930 --> 00:13:14.839 - which automatically adjusts the pressure. So you want as much air coming in as is going out, basically 00:13:14.839 --> 00:13:24.555 - have it a balanced system. When you bring in the fresh air in the winter time, it's good to bring it 00:13:24.555 --> 00:13:33.310 - in high because it's cool. It recovers 70 to 80% of the heat, but they're still coming in. 00:13:33.858 --> 00:13:39.451 - freeze your toes as it comes in, which we discovered because we blew it like across our kitchen floor 00:13:39.451 --> 00:13:45.100 - at first. And it didn't mix very well because it just went across the room and then down into the vent 00:13:45.100 --> 00:13:50.638 - on the other side. So I reducted my house or I put ducks upstairs for the first time. So I ran it up 00:13:50.638 --> 00:13:56.232 - to my upstairs bedrooms and it keeps them cool while we sleep, which is good for your health too. You 00:13:56.232 --> 00:13:58.206 - sleep better when it's a cool room. 00:13:58.818 --> 00:14:06.151 - and then it's able to mix as it comes back down through the house. So the geometry of the duct work 00:14:06.151 --> 00:14:14.070 - is important on that. So I mentioned that tight houses can build up moisture, which is kind of unbelievable 00:14:14.070 --> 00:14:21.549 - if you've always lived in a loose house in the winter time, but you can actually build up moisture to 00:14:21.549 --> 00:14:28.222 - like 50, 60% if you don't have any air exchange, and then you'll get condensation on walls 00:14:28.738 --> 00:14:36.319 - or on windows, which is quite annoying. So the ERV helps with that. One more thing about moisture is 00:14:36.319 --> 00:14:44.199 - as you heat and tight or as you insulate and tighten your house, your air conditioner may not run enough 00:14:44.199 --> 00:14:51.705 - to dehumidify your house because air conditioners only dehumidify when they're running. And if your 00:14:51.705 --> 00:14:54.782 - house is well insulated, it doesn't run. 00:14:55.298 --> 00:15:02.321 - So you might consider getting a dehumidifier in addition to your air conditioner. And then you can keep 00:15:02.321 --> 00:15:09.479 - your house at a warmer temperature if it's dry, which kind of feels better when you go in and out anyway. 00:15:09.479 --> 00:15:16.232 - And you'll feel the same comfort if the house is dry. Any questions about ERVs before we move on? I 00:15:16.232 --> 00:15:22.174 - think they're a really important thing to put in the house. It's being made very tight. 00:15:23.042 --> 00:15:29.917 - So you can watch your CO2 levels. This is a $200 meter. They actually rent one, I think, at the library 00:15:29.917 --> 00:15:36.593 - that you can take home. And this also has a really good humidity thing on it. It's 43% in here right 00:15:36.593 --> 00:15:43.402 - now and 74 degrees. The CO2 reading at 1089 might not be right because I'm sitting really close to it. 00:15:43.402 --> 00:15:50.277 - But it was saying that earlier when there weren't that many people in here yet. I have a question about 00:15:50.277 --> 00:15:51.070 - ERVs. Yeah. 00:15:51.426 --> 00:15:59.171 - In general, would you say that newer or older houses would benefit more from them? Or does it really 00:15:59.171 --> 00:16:07.377 - just depend on how tight the building is? So I've heard the idea that in the shoulder seasons when there's 00:16:07.377 --> 00:16:15.352 - not a lot of stack pressure pulling air through your house, that even a leaky house doesn't have enough 00:16:15.352 --> 00:16:20.030 - ventilation. In my experience watching that in my own house, 00:16:20.162 --> 00:16:29.717 - If I open the windows, the CO2 levels stay good. So I don't know if I quite believe that. I think tightening 00:16:29.717 --> 00:16:38.659 - up your house is an important part of providing like mechanical ventilation. One thing is you have to 00:16:38.659 --> 00:16:46.110 - be kind of careful with, and HVAC, I'm not completely versed in it, but the pressure 00:16:46.786 --> 00:16:55.731 - pressures of a house can drive air into walls and such. That's why you want to keep it balanced. So 00:16:55.731 --> 00:17:04.677 - I'm not sure it's a really good idea to put an ERV in a really, really leaky house for that reason. 00:17:04.677 --> 00:17:08.702 - But I think I might be a little off on that. 00:17:20.194 --> 00:17:29.950 - It is, so they're usually like a box that's, you know, 60 inches tall by two or three feet long. And 00:17:29.950 --> 00:17:39.802 - you can hang them on a ceiling in a basement or the ductwork can be, the shorter it is before it goes 00:17:39.802 --> 00:17:45.694 - outside is slightly better, but it can be some distance too. 00:17:45.890 --> 00:17:52.733 - But the incoming has to be separated from the outcoming where the ductwork goes outside. A good thing 00:17:52.733 --> 00:17:59.844 - to do when you're installing them too is to have them isolated from what you're hanging it from by rubber 00:17:59.844 --> 00:18:06.620 - straps of some sort. And then you want the first section of ductwork to be flex duct, just even like 00:18:06.620 --> 00:18:13.597 - a foot of it before it goes to the rigid duct. Yeah, so the vibrations won't spread through your house. 00:18:13.597 --> 00:18:15.006 - They are very quiet. 00:18:15.330 --> 00:18:22.494 - The fans in him are pretty amazingly quiet, but any kind of vibration kind of bugs me. So, yep. Yeah. 00:18:47.970 --> 00:18:54.397 - So the way the tightness of houses is measured, and I would have to do more research on whether you 00:18:54.397 --> 00:19:00.888 - need a ERV in a loose house. I'm not sure about that question. But the way you measure the tightness 00:19:00.888 --> 00:19:07.636 - of a house is they put a blower door in one of your doors, and they pressurize the house or depressurize 00:19:07.636 --> 00:19:14.063 - it. And from that, they can tell how many air exchanges you have per hour. It's like the equivalent 00:19:14.063 --> 00:19:17.662 - of a 50 mile per hour breeze blowing across your house. 00:19:18.306 --> 00:19:26.125 - So a really tight house, like the passive houses that they build in Germany are like half an air exchange 00:19:26.125 --> 00:19:33.797 - per hour. That's their standard. A loose house in the United States could be 25 air exchanges per hour. 00:19:33.797 --> 00:19:41.173 - The new building codes are requiring, I think, three or four air exchanges per hour. So if you want 00:19:41.173 --> 00:19:46.558 - to know how tight your house is, you could have a blower door test done. 00:19:47.234 --> 00:19:53.504 - And that would also, they can go around with a smoke pencil and see where the air is flowing into different 00:19:53.504 --> 00:19:59.659 - things and give you some ideas about where you would start. You can also use, I brought my thermal camera 00:19:59.659 --> 00:20:05.755 - here. This is like a $200 camera. They have better ones, but they can, if they're pressurizing the house 00:20:05.755 --> 00:20:11.909 - when it's a different temperature outside, you can see like the blue circles on the thermal camera around 00:20:11.909 --> 00:20:16.670 - leaks. So they can go through very quickly and tell you where all your leaks are. 00:20:17.378 --> 00:20:29.295 - So I think I got a little bit away from your question there, but yeah. Yeah, older windows are definitely 00:20:29.295 --> 00:20:41.100 - a sign of a place where it can leak. Mostly today I'm going to concentrate on the addicts because that's 00:20:41.100 --> 00:20:45.822 - like a common place where most leaks are. 00:20:46.082 --> 00:21:00.024 - But in a minute here, I'll go into my model here that I brought about where you can find the leaks in 00:21:00.024 --> 00:21:09.182 - your attic. Anyone need to hold the BS bear? Okay. So ERV is done. 00:21:14.146 --> 00:21:23.524 - There are definitely people out west that are keeping smoke out of their houses with ERBs, which is 00:21:23.524 --> 00:21:32.903 - pretty cool that you could survive that horrible experience by having that running. So I'm going to 00:21:32.903 --> 00:21:42.750 - move on to the vented attic. That's one way that a house's roof is constructed is called a vented attic. 00:21:43.426 --> 00:21:55.003 - and I'll move over to my model here. So this is a model of a roof. This would have shingles on it here. 00:21:55.003 --> 00:22:06.246 - And then this would be the ceiling of your house. This is an interior wall. This is a light fixture. 00:22:06.246 --> 00:22:12.702 - It'd usually be round. So this is what's called a baffle. 00:22:14.818 --> 00:22:23.694 - And the baffle allows air to enter on the lower side of your roof. This would be the roof overhang and 00:22:23.694 --> 00:22:32.656 - it would have a gutter out here. So this is a soffit vent here. It's got holes in it, aluminum. There's 00:22:32.656 --> 00:22:41.531 - a lot of different venting materials, some of them kind of on more modern houses. So the baffle allows 00:22:41.531 --> 00:22:42.910 - air to come in. 00:22:43.746 --> 00:22:50.750 - and it will extend up above the insulation that you've got on your floor of your attic. So they come 00:22:50.750 --> 00:22:57.755 - four feet long and you usually use most of them when you're putting like 20 inches of insulation in, 00:22:57.755 --> 00:23:04.759 - it'll go up that high. So the baffle allows air to enter the attic and then you have another vent up 00:23:04.759 --> 00:23:11.763 - at the ridge of your attic and the air rises because it's heated and leaves up there taking moisture 00:23:11.763 --> 00:23:12.734 - away with it. 00:23:13.314 --> 00:23:21.699 - The baffle down here also keeps the insulation away from your attic, which keeps your roof deck cold. 00:23:21.699 --> 00:23:30.002 - Can anybody guess why you want your roof deck to be cold? That's it, yeah, ice dams. The roofers get 00:23:30.002 --> 00:23:38.223 - all kinds of calls when we have certain weather where it's cold out, snows, and if you ever had ice 00:23:38.223 --> 00:23:41.182 - dams, they're not fun to deal with. 00:23:41.794 --> 00:23:49.575 - Metal roofing is much more resistant to ice dams too if you're ever replacing your roof with metal panels 00:23:49.575 --> 00:23:56.915 - instead of shingles. So if you enter your attic you probably won't see it all clean like this. It's 00:23:56.915 --> 00:24:04.402 - maybe one in every 20 attics has no insulation at all. A lot of older homes have old bats or blown in 00:24:04.402 --> 00:24:10.494 - that's only to the top of the rafters. So you can see all the tops of the rafters. 00:24:11.138 --> 00:24:20.682 - You really want to get like 18 inches and that gets you up to an R value of like 60. So how do you air 00:24:20.682 --> 00:24:30.133 - seal in here? Cause so these are all holes. You can see this electrical box has holes in it. The wall 00:24:30.133 --> 00:24:36.990 - here has holes. You would have drywall here, but if you go down the wall, 00:24:37.314 --> 00:24:45.833 - it's connected to wood again and there's nothing to keep the air from going in at the bottom of your 00:24:45.833 --> 00:24:54.520 - walls or coming in electrical boxes and going up both through the wire holes and all along this crack. 00:24:54.520 --> 00:25:03.376 - So it can really substantially move a lot of air into your attic. So when you're starting to think about 00:25:03.376 --> 00:25:04.894 - air sealing, you, 00:25:05.826 --> 00:25:13.038 - You can use this as a product called spray foam. This is the red can, which is a fire block as well. 00:25:13.038 --> 00:25:20.536 - This is my pro gun, which is like 50 bucks. You can get disposable cans and they're about the same price 00:25:20.536 --> 00:25:27.819 - for the foam, but this gives you a little more control. I'm gonna try not to make a mess. A friend of 00:25:27.819 --> 00:25:34.174 - mine was working on his own house, which was a mistake. He's a carpenter on the weekend. 00:25:34.562 --> 00:25:42.009 - started foaming something on one side of his house and it got stuck open. And so he had to run through 00:25:42.009 --> 00:25:49.455 - his house like this, shooting foam into his hand, which is why I brought a tarp here. But so hopefully 00:25:49.455 --> 00:25:56.974 - this works. There we go. So we're gonna foam holes in electrical boxes and we'll run foam in the cracks 00:25:56.974 --> 00:26:02.686 - along walls. Foam along these cracks too. Fill holes where wires come through. 00:26:08.802 --> 00:26:17.703 - weeks get done here if anyone wants to come up and shoot some foam they can. So if you look in here 00:26:17.703 --> 00:26:26.870 - under the baffle too I've got a piece of styrofoam out here and it's on the outer side of the wall and 00:26:26.870 --> 00:26:36.038 - eventually this styrofoam it's two inches thick it would be foamed in so the wind can't blow it in and 00:26:36.038 --> 00:26:38.174 - because what you'll see 00:26:38.722 --> 00:26:45.214 - A lot of times people will stuff bat insulation in out here to keep the insulation from going out and 00:26:45.214 --> 00:26:51.641 - filling your soffit up. And the wind will come along and blow in the soffit, blow that fat out, then 00:26:51.641 --> 00:26:58.069 - blow all the insulation into a big mound on the far side of the attic. So you want to secure this in 00:26:58.069 --> 00:27:04.625 - here with foam. Some of these baffles also come with a fold down side of it that you can staple to the 00:27:04.625 --> 00:27:07.934 - sides and then foam that in to secure that as well. 00:27:08.098 --> 00:27:16.300 - The baffle is just stapled to the roof deck as well. But the foam also gives you a little better insulation 00:27:16.300 --> 00:27:23.895 - out there at the outside of the wall. And since you've only sometimes got four inches to work with, 00:27:23.895 --> 00:27:31.566 - you don't want it to settle out there. What I've done before too is I'll get that sealed up and then 00:27:31.566 --> 00:27:37.566 - I'll take like a rock wool bat and fill the outside like six inches with that. 00:27:38.306 --> 00:27:46.484 - because that won't settle. And that keeps that R value out there at like R 15 or something for the end. 00:27:46.484 --> 00:27:54.348 - The rest of the installation, you're counting on it to settle and then have the settled R value. So 00:27:54.348 --> 00:28:02.211 - you'll put it in at 20 inches and it'll settle down to 15 in the end. Not quite that much, but. Oh, 00:28:02.211 --> 00:28:05.278 - one more thing about electrical boxes. 00:28:05.634 --> 00:28:12.935 - So you're going to fill these holes where the wires come through and then go around the perimeter of 00:28:12.935 --> 00:28:20.235 - them. But you don't want to fill the inside of the box. You want the electrician in the future to be 00:28:20.235 --> 00:28:27.608 - able to work in there. And I hired an installation contractor once. And I paid him to foam around the 00:28:27.608 --> 00:28:35.198 - boxes. And he filled about a dozen of them completely. So that wasn't good. I had to clean all that out. 00:28:36.034 --> 00:28:42.955 - So I asked him to fill the boxes, both for air sealing, but also because when he was spraying walls 00:28:42.955 --> 00:28:49.876 - with cellulose, and the dust from the cellulose will blow into your house as you're doing that. And 00:28:49.876 --> 00:28:56.936 - I was on another job where I wasn't in charge, but he had filled up a nursery with cellulose, because 00:28:56.936 --> 00:29:03.926 - there was a hole by one of the light switches. And the woman wasn't very pleased. Her baby wasn't in 00:29:03.926 --> 00:29:05.310 - there, fortunately. 00:29:05.634 --> 00:29:13.362 - He came around the corner and he goes, which was an odd response to a mother being upset that her nursery 00:29:13.362 --> 00:29:20.653 - was filled up with insulation. But there you go. That's the building traits. That's why I do it for 00:29:20.653 --> 00:29:28.162 - things like that. So this is another box that I actually had installed in a house once. And so you can 00:29:28.162 --> 00:29:34.942 - see inside there, I filled up the holes in the boxes have a bunch of little cutouts in them. 00:29:35.234 --> 00:29:46.488 - So you want to make sure you fill all those. And this was a remodel box. So I had caulked it to the 00:29:46.488 --> 00:29:58.754 - drywall when I put it in, because it has this flange on it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you can't. It might occasionally 00:29:58.754 --> 00:30:04.606 - be put on when a roof is redecked at the same time. 00:30:04.738 --> 00:30:12.495 - but you'd probably lay the deck, nail the first sheet of decking down and then climb under there and 00:30:12.495 --> 00:30:20.637 - do it. Yeah, so what you're going to be doing if you have to install battling, either you tear the soffit 00:30:20.637 --> 00:30:28.394 - off and do it from the outside or you lay a strip of plywood down. And for all this work, a strip of 00:30:28.394 --> 00:30:32.926 - plywood will really help save your body. Get in there and, 00:30:33.154 --> 00:30:40.559 - It's gonna be pretty tight on a lot of houses, but you just have to crawl under there and you can staple 00:30:40.559 --> 00:30:47.611 - it in up here. You can get them in usually. So this model I built was off a porch I built last year 00:30:47.611 --> 00:30:54.733 - that was only at a two pitch. I used the same rafter cutoffs. So this is a really flat roof. Usually 00:30:54.733 --> 00:31:00.798 - it'll be a little steeper. The steeper it is, the easier your work will be out there. 00:31:01.666 --> 00:31:09.236 - Maybe you don't have any soffit vents. So it's a good time to tear that board off out there and replace 00:31:09.236 --> 00:31:16.587 - it with a vented material. Like Alex was saying, he doesn't have soffit vents on a lot of his house. 00:31:16.587 --> 00:31:24.157 - So what would happen if you insulated without putting in soffit vents, if you didn't have soffit vents, 00:31:24.157 --> 00:31:29.470 - the ridge will suck air out of your house because air is trying to rise. 00:31:29.826 --> 00:31:38.990 - and it actually will suck it from anywhere it can get it, which will be these holes from inside your 00:31:38.990 --> 00:31:48.336 - house. So you want to make sure you get at least as much. You want it to be balanced more or less, but 00:31:48.336 --> 00:31:57.591 - if you're airing, have more ventilation at the bottom. Otherwise your house will suck. You don't want 00:31:57.591 --> 00:31:59.134 - that. This glue. 00:31:59.682 --> 00:32:07.527 - This is more or less a modern innovation. I mean, they've been around for probably 50 years or better. 00:32:07.527 --> 00:32:15.296 - And a lot of times people, when they're re-insulating, will just try to keep the insulation away from 00:32:15.296 --> 00:32:23.065 - the perimeter. But if you don't have 10% of your ceiling insulated, that's a really significant loss. 00:32:23.065 --> 00:32:27.102 - I mean, it degrades the rest of the insulation value 00:32:28.674 --> 00:32:41.219 - not a statistician, but half maybe. It can do that too, yeah. Yeah, if it's not blocked out here, then 00:32:41.219 --> 00:32:53.643 - you can have big mounds of installation on the other side. It's a baffle. So I think I've got most of 00:32:53.643 --> 00:32:57.662 - what I'm saying in this handout. 00:32:58.306 --> 00:33:12.766 - Yep. But the baffles come in styrofoam or hard plastic. Yep, some people make their own with styrofoam. 00:33:12.766 --> 00:33:24.862 - Yep. That'd be an interesting thing to see if they mention it, because it's important. 00:33:25.282 --> 00:33:29.795 - So I would hope an energy audit would look at everything and then recommend a whole systems approach 00:33:29.795 --> 00:33:31.582 - to what you need to do with your house. 00:34:00.994 --> 00:34:07.935 - So Therese is just saying that in most of the quotes that she's been seeing, the contractors include 00:34:07.935 --> 00:34:15.358 - putting baffles in because that's just standard. Thanks. Can you field the questions? I keep forgetting to. 00:34:55.586 --> 00:35:02.321 - So you want to also build, you'll have an attic hatch. You'll want to build walls out of plywood around 00:35:02.321 --> 00:35:08.991 - it, you know, 24 inches tall or something so you can blow insulation right up to it. And then the lid, 00:35:08.991 --> 00:35:15.726 - you'll want to glue some rigid foam to the top of it. You can make like a six inch thick layer and then 00:35:15.726 --> 00:35:22.526 - weather strip around the perimeter of it so it fits down on that weather stripping. And then you can use 00:35:22.722 --> 00:35:35.418 - If you've seen on old fashioned windows, they have cam closers. They're just like a little half moon 00:35:35.418 --> 00:35:48.743 - shape piece of metal. You could put some of those on it to tighten that thing down. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh-huh. 00:35:48.743 --> 00:35:51.006 - Or vented attics. 00:35:52.418 --> 00:36:01.043 - Generally, that's the beauty of a vented attic is you can get a lot of inexpensive R-value with blown-in 00:36:01.043 --> 00:36:09.422 - insulation. There's other ways of doing an unvented attic or, I mean, with cathedral ceilings, people 00:36:09.422 --> 00:36:18.130 - still do bats oftentimes, and they can do those with a vent up there. There's also some unvented options. 00:36:18.130 --> 00:36:21.662 - I don't think we'll get into that tonight, 00:36:22.274 --> 00:36:37.470 - Yeah. Yeah. That is, that's called a gable vent that's in the triangle. And if you have a ridge vent, 00:36:37.470 --> 00:36:51.326 - the gable vents can be counterproductive because they bring wind through. And so you want to 00:36:51.938 --> 00:36:58.843 - If you have a continuous ridge van along the whole ridge, then you might consider closing that off, 00:36:58.843 --> 00:37:05.886 - which could be done from the outside. But if you don't have a ridge vent, then that's probably better 00:37:05.886 --> 00:37:07.198 - than nothing. Yep. 00:37:27.202 --> 00:37:35.116 - Okay, so I'm moving on to danger. If anybody's getting sleepy, this is the danger talk. So I didn't 00:37:35.116 --> 00:37:43.584 - mention this actually. So you might get into a paddock that has like six inches of insulation or something 00:37:43.584 --> 00:37:51.577 - in it loose fill. They rent a vacuum for that at Sunrise rental. And I haven't yet to use it myself, 00:37:51.577 --> 00:37:56.958 - but you can vacuum out all the loose fill into these gigantic bags. 00:37:57.378 --> 00:38:05.272 - And if it's clean, you can put it back in after your air seal. Otherwise you can rake stuff around or 00:38:05.272 --> 00:38:13.398 - if it's old bats, you can lift them out of the way. So while you have stuff uncovered, you wanna inspect 00:38:13.398 --> 00:38:21.214 - all your wiring. So there's sometimes rodents in attics. You wanna find out if you can, how they get 00:38:21.214 --> 00:38:24.542 - in and block that off with hardware cloth. 00:38:24.802 --> 00:38:32.365 - and you wanna check for any wiring that's been damaged. You may also wanna install lights if you've 00:38:32.365 --> 00:38:40.230 - always wanted a light in your hallway closet or, cause this is the last easy time to do that. Fan boxes 00:38:40.230 --> 00:38:47.792 - as well can be added or you can upgrade your existing lights to fan boxes and then put the existing 00:38:47.792 --> 00:38:52.254 - light back in if you think you've got fans in your future. 00:38:52.386 --> 00:39:00.754 - Fans don't use very much energy and they can make you feel cooler. So that might be a good thing to 00:39:00.754 --> 00:39:09.457 - do that wouldn't be very expensive. So sometimes you'll see can lights and old can lights can be what's 00:39:09.457 --> 00:39:18.160 - called non-insulation contact, which means you can't put insulation over them. So a lot of times people 00:39:18.160 --> 00:39:21.758 - would just leave a big circle of it undone 00:39:22.402 --> 00:39:29.927 - You can get from Amazon, there's a rock wool bucket that you can glue over it. You can glue it down 00:39:29.927 --> 00:39:37.603 - to the top of the drywall and that makes it all airtight. And that could be done with the, or you can 00:39:37.603 --> 00:39:45.203 - make boxes out of drywall, which is non-combustible and glue those over the can lights. If you don't 00:39:45.203 --> 00:39:49.342 - like, but the buckets are an easy, bad way to do that. 00:39:51.810 --> 00:39:59.095 - Even if it's an LED light that doesn't make much heat, you probably still want to put that bucket over 00:39:59.095 --> 00:40:06.380 - it. And the modern can lights just say they're airtight, but I don't think they are. You can see holes 00:40:06.380 --> 00:40:13.453 - through them and you still got the crack all the way around it. So I would bucket any can light you 00:40:13.453 --> 00:40:20.596 - see, you know, put a cover over it and then you can insulate right over that bucket. Special bucket, 00:40:20.596 --> 00:40:21.374 - not just a 00:40:22.050 --> 00:40:29.952 - Rubbermaid. Okay, so here's something important that if you haven't been in an attic, you don't walk 00:40:29.952 --> 00:40:38.011 - on this ceiling because you'll fall through the ceiling. I knew a carpenter who fell through a ceiling 00:40:38.011 --> 00:40:46.070 - once and he was really good at all the trades. He was actually an electrician and he had it rehung and 00:40:46.070 --> 00:40:49.278 - re-dry walled before the owner got home. 00:40:53.218 --> 00:41:02.903 - Oh, all the way through onto the floor. So if you have metal furnace vent or water heater vents, they've 00:41:02.903 --> 00:41:12.773 - got to have a one to two inch clearance, depending on what the pipe requires, as well as masonry chimneys. 00:41:12.773 --> 00:41:20.798 - So you want to put a second dairy metal pipe that's spaced away from the original one. 00:41:21.506 --> 00:41:28.427 - They can be sealed to the drywall with a ring of metal that you can use high temperature caulking on. 00:41:28.427 --> 00:41:35.280 - But that's an important thing. Water heater vents, I've never seen one where you can't put your hand 00:41:35.280 --> 00:41:42.608 - on it when they've run for the whole time, but that's a good precaution. Alternatively, you could electrify 00:41:42.608 --> 00:41:49.529 - and ditch the vents, pull them out of there and not have gas in your house anymore, which is good for 00:41:49.529 --> 00:41:50.750 - a lot of reasons. 00:41:57.890 --> 00:42:05.888 - Most addicts have in them cellulose or fiberglass or rock wool, which is similar to fiberglass. Occasionally 00:42:05.888 --> 00:42:13.446 - you'll run across vermiculite, which from certain mines, it's a shiny like gold kind of thing like you 00:42:13.446 --> 00:42:20.857 - see in potting mix. Some of the mines unfortunately had asbestos naturally occurring in the rock. So 00:42:20.857 --> 00:42:26.654 - if you have any doubt about what you're working with, you wanna get it tested. 00:42:27.074 --> 00:42:34.731 - You can send off a sample and get it tested. So you want to wear good protective equipment, ventilators 00:42:34.731 --> 00:42:42.167 - and jumpsuits. And I've heard some insulators say that talcum powder can help keep insulation off of 00:42:42.167 --> 00:42:49.529 - you when you're working in the old stuff. The new stuff, by the way, is almost completely itch-free 00:42:49.529 --> 00:42:53.726 - now. It's amazing what they did with it. So that's good. 00:42:56.578 --> 00:43:03.923 - That's my time. Am I still in the ballpark? Good. Okay. I could talk about building science for many 00:43:03.923 --> 00:43:11.341 - hours. So TALC, unfortunately, for a certain period of time from Johnson & Johnson had asbestos in it 00:43:11.341 --> 00:43:18.686 - as well. This is just a side note. But they've got a class action suit going from all the people who 00:43:18.686 --> 00:43:25.886 - got cancer. They knew that it was in there and they just sold it to people to put on their babies. 00:43:26.658 --> 00:43:36.577 - We're almost done with danger here. Cold showers, I've heard can help get the fiberglass off you. It's 00:43:36.577 --> 00:43:46.592 - supposed to keep your porch closed and get it washed off. And then the last thing, this is not a danger 00:43:46.592 --> 00:43:56.126 - to you personally, but you want to make sure you get your ventilation right. Because if you don't, 00:43:56.322 --> 00:44:03.351 - You know, it can either draft more air out of your house or moisture can build up in your attic and 00:44:03.351 --> 00:44:10.872 - rot your roof sheeting. And that's not really what you want from this. We want our houses to be as durable 00:44:10.872 --> 00:44:17.972 - as possible. So now that you've done all the hard stuff, the re-blowing of the attic is the icing on 00:44:17.972 --> 00:44:23.806 - the cake. The loose fill is faster than putting baths back in between the rafters. 00:44:24.002 --> 00:44:31.606 - And it fills everything better. So I think there's no reason to think about that. It's also less expensive. 00:44:31.606 --> 00:44:38.787 - Fiberglass and cellulose loose fill both work. They both have some pros and cons. Cellulose is dusty. 00:44:38.787 --> 00:44:45.969 - Cellulose is made from old newspapers, although I don't know how much longer they're going to be able 00:44:45.969 --> 00:44:52.798 - to do that. So cellulose actually locks carbon away. Fiberglass can be largely recycled content. 00:44:53.250 --> 00:45:00.030 - It is itchy. Fiberglass is inherently flame resistant. Cellulose, despite being cellulose, is treated 00:45:00.030 --> 00:45:07.010 - with borate, so it's supposed to have a good flame rating. So it's kind of up to you. There is a certain 00:45:07.010 --> 00:45:14.057 - amount in really cold climates, and I think it doesn't apply here, is that fiberglass might have a little 00:45:14.057 --> 00:45:20.903 - convection in it, and it has a slightly less R value for the thickness. But if you're in an attic, you 00:45:20.903 --> 00:45:23.230 - can compensate with the thickness. 00:45:23.394 --> 00:45:32.577 - there. So you can rent the cellulose or fiberglass machine, I think it's 50 bucks a day, it's probably 00:45:32.577 --> 00:45:42.205 - 75 with inflation now, from Menards. And then they also have a free one at Lowe's that you're only supposed 00:45:42.205 --> 00:45:52.190 - to spray their fiberglass with, which usually costs 10 to 15% more than Menards' fiberglass, which is white and 00:45:52.386 --> 00:46:00.498 - Lowe's is pink, that's why. So if you use Lowe's machine, take the pink out of it that comes with it, 00:46:00.498 --> 00:46:08.610 - there's always a handful in, and then put it back in when you're done. Okay. So there's a calculation 00:46:08.610 --> 00:46:16.564 - chart on the bags. So you want to R60, which is 18 to 20 inches, and that'll tell you how many bags 00:46:16.564 --> 00:46:20.222 - to get for your square footage or your house. 00:46:21.794 --> 00:46:28.947 - And you wanna get extra bags and return them with a machine. You don't have to run out in the middle 00:46:28.947 --> 00:46:36.241 - of the job to get more bags. You wanna duct tape the hose sections together if you need more than one. 00:46:36.241 --> 00:46:43.819 - It usually comes with a metal coupler. If the hose is clogging as you're spraying, you'll want to, there's 00:46:43.819 --> 00:46:51.326 - an adjuster on the machine that you can turn down the feed rate. Okay, so that is all I've got for roofs. 00:46:51.426 --> 00:46:59.307 - or for attics. Does anyone have any questions before we move on from that? Yeah, sure. So I've heard 00:46:59.307 --> 00:47:07.343 - that the part of the house where the most heat is lost is through the roof. Do you find that to be the 00:47:07.343 --> 00:47:15.302 - case? I think that is true. I think the amount of penetrations in the ceilings and the fact that heat 00:47:15.302 --> 00:47:21.310 - rises, I think that's accurate. Yeah. And it's a place that you can address. 00:47:21.474 --> 00:47:33.566 - Because it's usually accessible. You don't have to tear off any finishes to do any of the work and Go ahead. 00:47:49.410 --> 00:47:56.736 - So the question is, do you have to work through the hole inside the house? So that's not ideal to have 00:47:56.736 --> 00:48:03.920 - a bunch of stuff flying through your house. If you have vinyl siding and it's easy to remove and put 00:48:03.920 --> 00:48:11.389 - back on, you can cut a hole through your gable. If you're getting a new roof, at the time you're getting 00:48:11.389 --> 00:48:16.510 - a new roof, before you get it, you can cut a hole through the shingles. 00:48:17.122 --> 00:48:23.348 - and make an access door there. You wanna tarp it in between uses, tuck the tarp up under the shingles. 00:48:23.348 --> 00:48:29.575 - So that would keep all that mess out of the house. But generally, so the hose going through the house, 00:48:29.575 --> 00:48:35.499 - if you kind of roughly cover the hatch, generally you can keep most of the mass out of the house. 00:48:35.499 --> 00:48:41.786 - I mean, it's not like it's gonna be flying down there in a crazy way. You probably should keep the door 00:48:41.786 --> 00:48:44.446 - shut to the room that you got the hatch in. 00:48:44.738 --> 00:49:00.045 - Maybe put a fan in the window so you have a little bit of, although that would bring it down from the 00:49:00.045 --> 00:49:12.350 - attic too. Yeah. Yeah, the attic hatches aren't always put in the best positions. 00:49:12.706 --> 00:49:18.014 - But blown in is so much easier to install and pulling bats through a small hole in a closet is much 00:49:18.014 --> 00:49:23.535 - worse than dragging the hose through once and then working up there. You got a little wire and a remote 00:49:23.535 --> 00:49:28.843 - control that you turn the thing on and off with that goes all the way back to the machine. Then you 00:49:28.843 --> 00:49:31.550 - want your partner down there feeding the bales in. 00:50:02.978 --> 00:50:09.185 - Yeah, that's good to know. It's a little bigger machine that can do cellulose, because the cellulose 00:50:09.185 --> 00:50:14.838 - is a little heavier. So maybe you do get a faster flow rate with the Menards machine. Yeah, 00:50:14.838 --> 00:50:21.045 - and like I said, the cost difference between Menards and Lowe's kind of covers the rental anyway, if 00:50:21.045 --> 00:50:23.134 - you only want to go to one place. 00:50:31.778 --> 00:50:38.932 - little bit more time. I wanted to run through crawl spaces really quick. So crawl spaces maybe are a 00:50:38.932 --> 00:50:46.227 - little more involved than attics. Crawl spaces can be a place that affects your health a lot more than 00:50:46.227 --> 00:50:53.594 - attics because you've got that moist and often moldy air rising into the house from down there. There's 00:50:53.594 --> 00:51:00.606 - businesses, several businesses that encapsulate crawl spaces, you know, the crawl space doctor and 00:51:01.346 --> 00:51:09.331 - several others but they are pricey but there's a lot of details there so that would take a lot of looking 00:51:09.331 --> 00:51:16.864 - into to do it yourself correctly but so I'm going to give a quick overview of crawl spaces so rigid 00:51:16.864 --> 00:51:25.150 - foam blocks can be fit in between the joists so you got these floor joists in the basement this is a roof but 00:51:25.506 --> 00:51:32.201 - You'll fit that rigid block in all the way to the outside band and then you can foam around that to 00:51:32.201 --> 00:51:38.897 - air seal the band area. So the bands often will glow bright red on a house or because a lot of heat 00:51:38.897 --> 00:51:45.793 - escapes there. It's usually just a single two by board that's out there and if it's not insulated. You 00:51:45.793 --> 00:51:52.555 - can also put a piece of bat insulation in if you have the room and then put the foam block on top of 00:51:52.555 --> 00:51:55.166 - it to raise the R value there and then 00:51:55.426 --> 00:52:01.975 - air sealed in. Oftentimes people will put just bad insulation in there and without it being sealed in, 00:52:01.975 --> 00:52:08.460 - it's not effective. It needs a dead air space on both sides and air can also move around it. And when 00:52:08.460 --> 00:52:15.263 - you're sealing that up or you're not sealing it up, then that air and fibrous insulation can be a problem. 00:52:15.263 --> 00:52:21.876 - So you want to air seal that area if you're working with it. A bit of caution there. So houses usually, 00:52:21.876 --> 00:52:25.182 - modern houses sit on this, it's called seal sealer. 00:52:25.474 --> 00:52:31.560 - And this will sit on your concrete and then the wood will go on top of that. And it's usually a treated 00:52:31.560 --> 00:52:37.529 - board on the bottom. Got an older house and you don't see this sticking out on top of the foundation. 00:52:37.529 --> 00:52:43.556 - Older houses oftentimes have termite shielding that was made out of metal. Either of these were called 00:52:43.556 --> 00:52:49.583 - capillary breaks and the concrete wicks up a lot of water. And especially if your grading isn't right, 00:52:49.583 --> 00:52:54.206 - you can see concrete that's just completely soaked. So when you insulate here, 00:52:54.530 --> 00:53:02.804 - You're slowing down the heat flow. You're slowing the drying. And that can cause this to rot where it 00:53:02.804 --> 00:53:11.321 - never did before, if there's no capillary break before. So that's a place where you want to be cautious. 00:53:11.321 --> 00:53:19.838 - Generally, they'll put down a 6-mil plastic or better. I don't think any of the professionals use 6-mil. 00:53:20.354 --> 00:53:26.300 - but 10 mil plastic that's a little more rigid. Some of it's fiber reinforced. They'll put that down 00:53:26.300 --> 00:53:32.364 - over all the dirt in the crawl space and run it up the walls. And that stops the rising moisture from 00:53:32.364 --> 00:53:38.310 - coming out of the dirt. A lot of the moisture in a house can come right out of the dirt and then go 00:53:38.310 --> 00:53:44.197 - up into the house from below. And that plastic also blocks radon. And if you have a radon problem, 00:53:44.197 --> 00:53:49.310 - encapsulating and putting a depressurizing tube and a fan underneath the plastic will 00:53:49.506 --> 00:53:56.986 - move the radon in the right direction out of the house. The radon I understand is if it's high enough, 00:53:56.986 --> 00:54:04.393 - it's like smoking half a pack of cigarettes possibly a day. That might be fear-mongering, but you can 00:54:04.393 --> 00:54:11.727 - also get little radon meters that are the same size as my CO2 meter. There's all kinds of indoor air 00:54:11.727 --> 00:54:17.246 - quality meters now for particulates and CO2 and volatiles that are all like 00:54:17.474 --> 00:54:25.959 - about two or $300 a piece if you really want to scare yourself every day. I've stuck with the CO2 so 00:54:25.959 --> 00:54:34.781 - far. I'm thinking about particulates next. So something that I've done before is you can get inexpensive 00:54:34.781 --> 00:54:44.190 - foil bubble wrap at the ABC roofing supply. And I put that down on the dirt before putting the plastic over it. 00:54:44.450 --> 00:54:51.772 - And it makes the whole crawl space soft and it keeps you from poking the liner on stuff sticking out 00:54:51.772 --> 00:54:59.021 - of the dirt. So all seams on that plastic should be taped. You should try to use as big a sheets as 00:54:59.021 --> 00:55:06.487 - possible. And then rigid foam can be added to the walls over the plastic. And you want to leave a bare 00:55:06.487 --> 00:55:13.374 - strip of concrete along the top to inspect for termites. Termites love burrowing through foam. 00:55:13.474 --> 00:55:21.120 - which is why I don't really approve of putting it on the outside of houses, foundations. They will just 00:55:21.120 --> 00:55:28.471 - chew it to nothing. And then if it's an ICF wall going up into a house, they'll use it as a highway 00:55:28.471 --> 00:55:36.264 - to go up to the wood. Yep. Installing sump pumps if your basement regularly floods, a lot of crawl space. 00:55:36.264 --> 00:55:42.366 - A lot of crawl spaces usually will get like six inches of water in them after rain 00:55:42.914 --> 00:55:50.842 - That might be from gutters or draining on the outside that needs to be fixed, but you don't want that 00:55:50.842 --> 00:55:59.004 - happening when you have a new liner in there and it messing everything up. Dehumidifier might be a final 00:55:59.004 --> 00:56:06.932 - step. So I think that's about it for crawl spaces. Any questions on this? We could go on crawl spaces 00:56:06.932 --> 00:56:11.518 - for a long time. There's a lot to do with them, but. Yeah. 00:56:12.066 --> 00:56:18.869 - Would a lot of these tips also apply to unfinished basements? Or is that sort of a different? Yeah, 00:56:18.869 --> 00:56:26.013 - unfinished basements are very similar. So would these tips apply to unfinished basements? The code can't 00:56:26.013 --> 00:56:32.884 - let you have uncovered foam in a basement. So if you go putting foam on the walls, you have to cover 00:56:32.884 --> 00:56:37.374 - it with drywall or another material if you want it to be decoded. 00:56:40.738 --> 00:56:48.323 - Basement floors, if you've already got concrete down there, they can be coated with epoxy paint. They 00:56:48.323 --> 00:56:56.056 - should be prepped very carefully and then coated with epoxy paint and that'll keep moisture from rising 00:56:56.056 --> 00:57:03.789 - through the basement floor because moisture will wick right through concrete. It's very porous. So I've 00:57:03.789 --> 00:57:10.110 - got some resources listed here. Some of them are, the first ones are YouTube videos. 00:57:10.306 --> 00:57:17.349 - YouTube's very useful for learning technical things, as a lot of you may know, if you work on cars or 00:57:17.349 --> 00:57:24.530 - anything else. I'd say be careful because it's addictive and it's meant to sell you stuff. But anything 00:57:24.530 --> 00:57:31.503 - about insulating an attic, there's several good ones on there where they show why you want to do it. 00:57:31.503 --> 00:57:38.753 - They'll show people testing them with thermal cameras and smoke pencils and then going through and doing 00:57:38.753 --> 00:57:39.582 - the filming 00:57:44.834 --> 00:57:52.931 - There's a show called the Build Show that I really like watching. They are often sponsored by a particular 00:57:52.931 --> 00:58:01.028 - material, but they have really good building information. Joe Listebrek from Building Science Corporation, 00:58:01.028 --> 00:58:08.822 - they've got like 100 free articles you can read on building science, and they're very straightforward. 00:58:08.822 --> 00:58:14.270 - And he's a good speaker to listen to. He has a very wry sense of humor. 00:58:15.458 --> 00:58:23.119 - Robert Lunksford with Home Performance is good for everything HVAC. He's a little hard to get the big 00:58:23.119 --> 00:58:30.630 - picture from at times, though. He really narrows in on things and goes on for a long time. Then you 00:58:30.630 --> 00:58:38.366 - also have Fine Home Building Magazine, which is available at the library and podcast. Building Science 00:58:38.366 --> 00:58:43.774 - with a Beat podcast is short, little bits that are fun with nice music. 00:58:47.714 --> 00:58:51.486 - Any final questions? 00:59:21.538 --> 00:59:29.287 - I don't really want to endorse or go against any companies, but hopefully I've given you enough that 00:59:29.287 --> 00:59:36.959 - you can see how they respond to this different stuff when you ask them about a project. And if they 00:59:36.959 --> 00:59:44.785 - say, oh, we don't do air sealing in attics, we just blow more insulation, then you maybe want to find 00:59:44.785 --> 00:59:51.230 - somebody that does do the harder thing first. But I think contractors are evolving. 00:59:51.426 --> 00:59:59.757 - You know, it may be difficult to find people that want to do everything correctly. But I think they're 00:59:59.757 --> 01:00:07.846 - out there. So, yep. So also, if you're hiring someone, we're going to have a lot of info out on the 01:00:07.846 --> 01:00:16.339 - table about the different rebates that are available. There's quite a few rebates available. And I think 01:00:16.339 --> 01:00:18.846 - everybody needs to write their 01:00:19.330 --> 01:00:25.209 - Congressman and say we want to keep rebates available and keep low interest loans available so that 01:00:25.209 --> 01:00:31.205 - people can afford to do this stuff, make their houses healthy and have their energy bills go down and 01:00:31.205 --> 01:00:33.086 - maybe slow climate change down. 01:01:05.986 --> 01:01:14.864 - Cooling costs, maybe. Yeah. So your question is, you've heard of a solar fan that you can put on your 01:01:14.864 --> 01:01:23.915 - roof that saves you money. Yeah. I don't know about that in particular. I've seen power vents on houses 01:01:23.915 --> 01:01:32.706 - that, for one reason or another, they might have been a hip roof, which are a little harder to vent, 01:01:32.706 --> 01:01:35.230 - or sometimes they just stick 01:01:35.650 --> 01:01:42.758 - three power vents on a house. They're really big circles of metal. That's how you can see them from 01:01:42.758 --> 01:01:50.009 - the ground. And they've got a big fan, big noisy fan that pops on when it gets hot up there and blows 01:01:50.009 --> 01:01:57.686 - air out of the house. I think if you can do it without electricity, that's way better. But I'm not familiar 01:01:57.686 --> 01:02:05.150 - with that. If they're offering a rebate for it, maybe it is a good new technology. I can see it possibly 01:02:05.474 --> 01:02:11.795 - So if you have thick enough insulation, you may not be as concerned about the heat of your attic. 01:02:11.795 --> 01:02:18.245 - You know, they sell different radiant barriers that can be stapled to the rafters or laid on top of 01:02:18.245 --> 01:02:24.888 - your insulation. And there's a bit of skepticism about how useful those are if you've got really thick 01:02:24.888 --> 01:02:25.662 - insulation. 01:02:37.922 --> 01:02:44.194 - Greg, thank you immensely. This was really, really, really helpful. Yeah. And I think there's refreshments 01:02:44.194 --> 01:02:50.056 - thanks to hand and to NOAA and to Electrify Indiana. There's lots of refreshments out there. Please 01:02:50.056 --> 01:02:56.035 - help yourself. And Greg is available for one-on-one questions and conversations. So thank you so much 01:02:56.035 --> 01:03:02.072 - for being here. Really wonderful. Yeah, thanks. If you want to look at my CO2 meter or shoot some foam 01:03:02.072 --> 01:03:07.582 - or look at the thermal camera, you can look at yourself in it. It's kind of weird to see your 01:03:08.290 --> 01:03:15.907 - glowing eyeballs. Yep. Yeah, I should add that there are sheets out there. If you have any questions 01:03:15.907 --> 01:03:23.600 - or want information, just write your name down and what it is that you'd like, and we can get that to 01:03:23.600 --> 01:03:31.443 - you on any aspect of electrification. So thanks so much. All right. Thanks for coming. I guess I should 01:03:31.443 --> 01:03:34.686 - add to the people who are with us on Zoom, 01:03:34.786 --> 01:03:44.893 - please just email us questions at electrifyindiana and we'll get them to Greg or to ourselves and get 01:03:44.893 --> 01:03:46.974 - back to you. Thanks.