Insulating House walls. Will it really help like they say.?

Question

I live in a two story old farm house and they tell me if I get all the walls blown in with insulation it will save me 30% on my heating costs.Maybe even 50% I understand it will save me some but is it really that much?

Answer 1

Yes it will. Any area in a home that can be insulated from the elements will increase efficiency.

Answer 2

I agree with the other posts that it will save alot of money. But do not forget it still is an old farmhouse. They did not have mold and mildew problems BECAUSE they were so drafty. Also no problems with radon gas or vapor condensation. Not that I am talking down the insulation but be prepared to adjust how the environment is in the home with the insulation. It may be that running a dehumidifier is a must or that you find you also must replace the windows to get the most out of this insulation project. The house environment is a system and what you do with the insulation will have more effects on the interior environment.

Answer 3

  Depending on the structure of the house, and the present condition of the windows and doors, I think a more realistic savings estimate would be in the 25% range, providing they insulate well.

  Don't forget, in case they forget to inform you, blown in insualtion does settle, so a follow up in a few years might be necessary.

  It' very possible the saving could be higher, but don't expect too much, and any savings at all is good.

  Just figure how much the heating bill is now, and how long it will take to recover the cost of insulating, then decide if it's worth it.

Answer 4

If you're going to spend money to cut energy costs, make sure that your attic is fully insulated, because the loss from heat rising is huge.  Also check your windows and make sure that they have decent storm windows.  Most home stores will let you custom order new metal triple track storm windows to install yourself for well less than $100 per window. After you deal with the attic and windows, then look at your heat bills and see if you really want to do the sidewall insulation.

It takes a long time to pay for itself, and the stuff tends to settle in the wall cavities. It also holds water like a sponge if you ever have a gutter problem or any leak.  Don't do it if you've ever had a problem with mold or mildew on your exterior walls unless you had that professionally remediated- it will come back even worse.  If you really want to do it, make sure that they either install a vapor barrier on the warm side of the wall, or install small vents in each major wall cavity to get water vapor out of the walls over time.

Answer 5

you would be much better off dry lining the wall, pumping insulation isnt as effective!

Answer 6

Hello, with a two story farm house my assumption is that it is more than 50 years old, that being the case the walls of your home are "balloon framed" which means that the walls are continuous from at least the first floor all the way to the top plate of the house, which is the high part where the roof sits on the outside wall.You can go to the basement and look at the outside walls,where floor joist for the first floor are and see if this is open or not (there may be a block closing off the stud wall).Make sure that there is something there or when the insulation comes in it will just fill up your basement instead of the wall. Make sure that special attention is given to the areas around windows and doors to fill the wall completely around them. The newer products out have a very low compaction rate and should hold their volume well.After insulating the walls you should also insulate the flat areas of your attic with at least an r-30, then caulk the exterior window frames and door frames. Check to make sure that the window glass is caulked into the frames well, and that is about as far as you can go. The only extra you could do would be to buy storm windows someplace like home depot,in Ohio they are only about $35 for an average window. It may sound like a lot but a good do-it-yourselfer, with a helper can do the job in a weekend. Your initial cost if you do the job yourself without the storm windows should be in the $600-$700

range. Hope this helps. P.S. with what I have just described you could easily see 40-50% savings which would pay for the job the first winter. Good luck.

Answer 7

i think so. we have a cape and had to insulate more in the kids room because it seemed so cold in there. capes don't have an attic, typically the bedrooms are what would be the attic.  So we added more, one more layer, changed the older ones with two new ones. low and behold, it was warmer and saved us heating up all the time. we probably saved about 30%, maybe 40%.  

Answer 8

if you live in an old farmhouse then i doubt if it has cavity walls ..no cavity walls ...no insulation ...the most you will save is about 20%..any more and they are lying ...get the windows double glazed ..get the loft well insulated ..fill every gap