With the insulation installed on the walls, our drywall contractor has sent out a full crew to install the drywall. We asked them to start on the 2nd floor ceiling so that our insulation contractor can complete the last of the insulation, which is the blown in fiberglass roof insulation.

Other than the coordination with the insulation contractor, installing the drywall is pretty straight forward. The bathrooms, kitchen walls and the lower half of the basement walls get a moisture resistant drywall. Walls that will have tile installed get Durock, a cement board product that is strong enough to hold the weight of the tile. Everything else gets standard drywall. With the drywall crew working in every place in the building, we didn’t schedule anyone else to come work on site during the week. Nevertheless, for the first time in three quarters of a year, we finally start to get a sense of how the various rooms in the building will look and feel.

2nd floor bedroom, drywall panel going in

Bsmt insulation is complete

1st floor kitchen area

bathroom moisture resistant drywall and Durock installed

bsmt drywall ready to start going in

Bottom half of the bsmt walls get the moisture resistant drywall

Bsmt master bath taking shape

Stairwell to the 2nd floor

With the front roof framed out, the initial water tight membrane laid, and the window flashing complete, the building is finally water tight. Our electrical conduit is complete and rough-in inspections for MEP have all been signed off on. Bring on the insulation!

In our on-going effort to use more environmentally safe materials, we decided to go with EcoBatt Knauf Insulation. Their ecobatt product uses a bio-based binder instead of a formaldehyde binder, thereby significantly reducing the number of chemicals leaching into the indoor environment. For our roof insulation, we are going with a fiberglass blown insulation to reach an insulation value of R-49. For our walls, we are aiming to achieve a R-21 value using Fiberglass batts.

Like everything we’ve touched so far in this project, there were a few spots in the house that made insulation a little more difficult. Since we were keeping the trim intact around the dinning room bay windows, we didn’t have the typical wall depth that you get with new framing. The old framing gave us about one inch to work with, so we had to use a rigid board insulation that can give us good protection but can fit the space. In the basement, we are taking a preventative measure by not extending the batt insulation all of the way to the basement floor. Instead, the bottom foot or so of the wall is a moisture resistant rigid foam that, in case moisture does ever collect right at the base of the wall, will resist any mold or rot.  Finally, between the 1st floor and the 2nd floor unit, we are installing a layer of sound proofing insulation, which should dampen any sounds between the two units.

It isn’t too difficult to find contractor’s willing to install insulation for a very minimal price. On certain tasks, we have certainly gone with the cheapest bid. For this bid however, we made sure that we are hiring a high quality contractor to do this job right. We went with Minnich Insulation as they had a number of good reviews and were Building Performance Institute, Building Analyst and Envelope certified. In addition to our insulation contractor installing all of the wall and ceiling insulation, he also went through the building sealing all crevasses, outlets, piping penetrations, and other little openings to create a tight air sealed enclosure for our building. As good as the insulation is for our building, without a proper air sealing of the building, the money spent on insulation would be practically wasted. Its the attention to detail, especially while air sealing, that I think makes the biggest difference in quality between insulation contractors. For more on air sealing, see http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/air-leaks-waste-energy-and-rot-houses

Finally, with Insulation in full swing, our drywall contractor is preparing to start his work as well. Mid-week, we got a large drywall delivery to the building! Once it gets started, drywall will be installed in a hurry, so we’re looking forward to some big changes in the next week or two!

Insulation arriving on site

We choose to go with Knauf Insulation

2nd Floor walls and Ceiling getting insulated

Drywall gets delivered to site

We used a ridge foam board around dinning room bay windows

Ridge board in the bottom two feet of bsmt wall

1st floor wall insulation and ceiling sound proofing

In-between the beam pocket insulation

After the windows went in and the flashing brought the old character back to the front of the house, it seems like we have taken a step backward with the scaffolding having gone back up. However, it does actually mean the start of the difficult process of rebuilding the front roof. What makes this roof so much more complicated is that it was originally built with an interior gutter system that runs right above the front bay. (This was also where the gutter originally failed and lead to the massive water problems for the original owner. The water washed away the front facade from the inside causing significant structural damage). Our plan is to move this gutter as far forward as possible while maintaining the original character of the house. So this week, our roofing contractor began to frame out the structure of the roof. He also brought a mock-up of the final detail for the front face of the roof detail. From the time of demo, we kept a piece of the under side of the decorative roof which our contractor will try to emulate.

Other progress this week included installing the glass block windows in two basement closets and one in our master bathroom. The siding guys made great progress and have brought the siding all the way up to the roof line. Finally, we took down the silt fence in the front, so we installed the permanent side gate in the front of the house.