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Frankfort Indiana, USA | |
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To find out your recommended R-Values by US Government click Here:
R-Value
The US Government does not consider fiberglass insulation to be an air infiltration barrier, but does for dense packed cellulose and foam, click Here: Air InfiltrationInsulation Types Older Homes (Wall Fill or Drill And Blow) Fiberglass Projects Technical Issues Cathedral ventilation and shingle issues info from University of Illinois: click Here: VentilationA really Good explanation and comparison of fiberglass to foam: Click Here: > Fairy Tale
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Mold and
Condensation
We see condensation and mold problems in new and older
homes quite often. Invariably, we find out that the culprit is moisture,
lack of insulation, or a combination of the two which results in an
outside corner or edge "seeing" it's dewpoint. This causes
condensation to appear and eventually mold. Sometimes, it can
even result in drywall "pop", that is the drywall starts to sag or
fall.
Examples of
Mold
In this picture, we see a typical picture(and somewhat out of focus, sorry!) of an outside corner. As you can see, the mold is growing in the corner with rough deminsions of 4 inches on each side and coming down about 1 1/2 inches. This corner was the result of lack insulation in the attic. Specifically, in the corner of a hip roof. These are tough areas to insulate. Because these areas are so small to get at, a lazy or unscrupulous installer may just block the corner off or ignore it. He is gambling that the owner will not have any clue there is a problem for several years. By then, the installer may be long gone, and the home owner is stuck trying to figure out why he has black mold, and maybe even a resultant "unexplainable" cough. For more information on mold from the CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL, click here: CDC.
Below
is another picture. This time of an outer wall, where the sidewall
meets the ceiling. In this picture, the mold is about 12 inches
long. The mold resulted from the attic insulation having been "blown
away" from the top plate above the wall from outside air movement.
That is to say, the wind blew through the eve vents and pushed the
insulation away from the outside edges in the attic. This resulted
in very little insulation being on the outside corners edge, and as soon
as the weather got cold enough, and moisture high enough in the house, the
moisture started to condense on the coldest surfaces first. Normally
you expect to see the condensation around and on windows, expecially on
older homes, but with the insulation pushed back in the
attic, this sort of thing happens all the time. The
method to stop this, is to install vent chutes (kind of like special air
tunnels), in the eves to channel the air above the insulation. Then
you block off and insulate above the rest of the plate above the outside
walls so that the wind does blow the insulation away.
This
last picture, is of dimpling, or drywall "pop". I know it is hard to
see, but, with enough moisture condensing out in a house, it will start to
saturate the ceiling drywall. If it gets wet enough, the dry wall
screws will start to pull through..
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Copyright 2005 Hoosier Square, Inc. | |