Found out my 1950s house has zero insulation in the walls

I was poking around in my attic last weekend trying to figure out why my heating bill was so high. Decided to pull back some of the old fiberglass batts up there and peeked down into the wall cavity with a flashlight. Turns out there's nothing between the interior plaster and the exterior siding. No insulation at all, just empty space. Found a forum post from a guy in Michigan who said most houses built before 1960 in my area are the same way. I guess that explains why my living room drops 5 degrees as soon as the furnace kicks off. Has anyone else dealt with retrofitting insulation into old walls without tearing everything apart?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant.sam3d ago

Kind of gotta push back here a little bit. While it's definitely true that a lot of old houses have empty walls, yours might not be as naked as you think. Back in the 50s they often used "rock wool" or even just curled up paper or some other weird stuff between the studs that isn't what we'd call insulation today, but it's still something. If you're going to blow in cellulose from the top, make sure you know exactly how your balloon framing works or you'll end up with a real mess in your basement.

mila_perry132d ago

Didn't @grant.sam mention rock wool? I heard that stuff is basically just spun up rocks.

xena3731d ago

Yeah but nobody's talking about the real problem with rock wool - if your house was built before 1970 there's a decent chance that stuff has settled or gotten damp over the decades. My buddy just found out the hard way when he started poking around his attic and discovered the rock wool in his walls had basically turned into this gross clumpy mess that was holding moisture against the studs. So even if you think you have something in there, it might not be doing anything useful anymore. Plus if it's the old school rock wool from like the 40s or 50s, sometimes they mixed it with asbestos or other junk that you really don't want to be breathing in while you're up there working. Just something to think about before you start assuming the old stuff is still doing its job.