How to / Discussions

...to the studsw throughout, including "raising the roof" in the attic to create more headroom & more usable floor space. Tore out the existing flooring, installed new subfloor with hardwood finish flooring to follow. New insulation and Intello air barrier throughout the underside of the roof and inboard of the old sh...

...to avoid future floods. My plan is to use tridodetic posts as my foundation, so the property will essentially be sitting on stilts. My second goal is to install concrete hydronic radiant floors. Does anyone have any experience with DIYing hydronic concrete slabs on stilts. How I would go about insulating underneath to ...

...how to add insulation to my house. My house qualifies for a state of Massachusetts program to add cellulose insulation to my attic, but I would need to add vents in the roof in order to meet the building codes.  But adding vents would entail cutting at least 4 holes in the roof, and it is not clear that would provide a...

...to find knowledgeable professional to make airtight passive house. Luckily I was around to correct below ground insulation in time before slab was poured, but need to plan better for above the ground. My contractor is planning foam insulation based on HERS measurements followed by taping leakages and openings. I feel i...

...to of this page about how to prevent mold when renovating basements, which may be of value to you anyway.   In that article you will also see a photo of a block wall with rotted bottom plates, likely what you have, and what you may have again if you aren’t careful. Feel free to ask more questions, I just wasn’t too cle...

...to hire a consultant to optimize passive solar, ventilation, and other aspects.  Do you have a list of recommendations? If you want to learn how to build the best tiny house I would start on this page here , its the best tiny house we have seen -  How to build tiny houses on Wheels for cold climates And on the other si...

How to ventilate pitched roof homes in hot and humid coastal climate? For ventilating a roof in a hot climate you should have well-ventilated soffits to remove moisture and prevent overheating. This page will help - How to ventilate a roof properly We recommend soffits vents as it provides a very uniform source of air ...

...to the floor from the basement. the floor joist is running on the actual diry it is freezing in the winter. 

...to stay wet forever anyway since the ground is wet even if you were to allow it to dry to the interior. On that point – if drying to the interior is something you read here on our site let me clarify – yes you should let walls dry to the interior, by that we  mean to caution readers against installing interior poly vap...

...Top tips for getting a house ready for winter If you go much below 30%RH you will likely start to get chapped lips and nose bleeds so I'm not sure what is going on honestly, are you sure your hygrometer is giving you an accurate reading? That sounds like a problem you’d experience if it was 60-70% RH, I just find it a ...

...to point out the walls are sitting on contrete blocks no footing my plan is to add a 6mil barrier to floor,  i eventually want to use in winter thx  denis I’m going to read this back to you and please tell me if I’m reading you right – you have a continuous 2x6 and plywood foundation wall sitting on a continous block w...

...to retain heat, but if you were counting on it as the air barrier to stop air leakage, no matter how good a job you do installing it you may only ever be one pothole away from a leaky house. And as for aesthetics, I think you probably would notice cracking in the drywall as well. If it were me I’d be going with batt in...

...to leave the insulbrick on, strap it with 1"x3" lumber, mount the siding to the strapping and don't bother insulating at all.  I don't want to create a situation where moisture gets trapped in the wall and causes it to rot but I don't want to waste any more energy for heating than I have to. What are your thoughts? Tha...

...to add comfort board or similar to outside of SIP, and if so how do u deal with window set back?

...torm. How to prevent it in future? Contractor said it wasn't a big deal. Crawl space under house with pipes which froze during same storm. Is it wise to insulate the wood skirting around the house to prevent a repeat situation? You’ve got two separate questions here, so first check this page here on crawlspaces –  How ...

...to the advice you received to keep it warm.  For typical homes in situations like this we advice people to insulate the exterior of the walls to protect the stone or concrete wall from freezing and cracking. Is that an option? If so read on here –  How to properly insulate the exterior walls of old homes If as a herita...

...to moisture damage, but trapping moisture inside will allow condensation to form on the wood. You can learn more here about how that happens and how to avoid it –  How to build and renovate basements properly so they don’t develop mold When you see Rockwool on basement walls, any moisture in the concrete can move right...

...to reduce it. Do you use the basement as living space? Was the reading taken down there or upstairs in the conditioned space? First have a look here on the best ways to mitigate radon gas in homes –  How to remove radon gas from basements and crawl spaces Some of the radon mitigation techniques could be a DIY solution,...