Efficient use of heat in an older home?

[Orrex]

My house is brick and about 80 years old, with a small addition built in 1958 at the rear of the house for a laundry and half-bath. We have natural gas heat, supplemented with a kerosene heater as needed. We also installed new windows in December 2007.

The basement is unfinished, with a bare concrete floor and and brick walls covered, I believe, in some kind of plaster. We've done almost no renovations to the basement except to add fiberglass insulation under the first floor. Although we don't have any leaks in the walls or floor, we do get seepage after several days of heavy rain. However, due to the slope of the floor, most of the water that comes in this way goes right to the floor drain.

The addition is wood frame with a crawlspace beneath it accessible from the basement, but the addition itself sits on bare earth. It's maybe 24" from the ground to the bottom of the floor joists.

In the winter months, both the basement and the addition get terribly cold, and I'm wondering what impact they're having on our heating costs. For various reasons we're unable to close off the addition from the rest of the house except with a blanket hung in the doorway, and a stiff, icy breeze whistles through there almost constantly.

One thing I'd like to do is install fiberglass insulation under the floor of the addition. The crawlspace is just large enough that I could get in there with a roll, but how big a difference might this make? It seems as though heavy drafts also come through the walls--what do you recommend?

I'd also like to do something about the basement. I have the wherewithal to frame out the walls and put up insulation and drywall, but with the seepage problem I'm reluctant to try it. A friend suggested that I run a space heater down there to combat the chill, but is this a good strategy?


Alternatively, I could put a couple of fire barrels in the foyer and living room, and we could burn kindling and scrap wood. What do you think?


Thanks in advance for your insights!

[Wash. state Desk Jet]

1. Cure the water seepage

Sheet rock the ceiling. Fer out the basement walls and insulate.Show pic's of the addition inside and out. by your description ,the water comes up through the floor in the basement, is that right?

If you have the clearance ,you can build a floor over the concrete. Use treated wood and create drainage to the floor drain, You will need access to that floor drain. On a 100 yr.old house we jack hammered a drainage passage way,installed a drain pathway using concrete and pipe,than built a floor over the concrete floor using 2x's 4 treated for the frame work and 1 inch ply for the sub floor. You can carpet that if you want to add more floor insulation. Than you can add pick a watt in the wall heaters with wall mount thermostat for basement temperature control. That's if you have the power to pull . A 220 circuit will give you 4500 watts.If you are not maxed out at your panel box. The new in the wall mount electric heating units are energy efficient, or cheap to run.

Need to see pics to analyze your problem. Looking at the addition inside and out would help .The basement floor walls and ceiling. And around the foundation on the outside.

[Wash. state Desk Jet]

2. Also there is

a new sub flooring product out, it is osb with a plastic bottom designed to go over concrete. Snap together sub flooring. You add the drainage path to your drain by busting out some concrete and creating a path lower than the concrete floor to your drain line in the floor. you may have a little re plumbing to do, and throw a carpet over the flooring. home depot carries that sub flooring product. Check it out.

[Orrex]

3. I'll see about getting some pictures of the addition

Sheet rock the ceiling? Does that boost the effective R value of the insulation? At the moment, we don't have adequate clearance to build up the floor; I'm already bumping my head on the ductwork, but maybe that's a project for another time.

Also, I should have specified that the water seeps through the walls in two main places--neither of them very heavily, and one more pronounced than the other.



Thanks for your suggestions. I'll get some pics when the light is better.

[Wash. state Desk Jet]

4. Yes sheet rock

closes the air gaps and adds to the values. Get a few pics of the area where the water seeps in on the outside of the house where the problem is. Inside too of course.My guess is you can cure that problem on a week end project. Show me the gutter down spout on that side of the house. And take pics of the foundation on the leaking side. And get some pics of the addition, inside and out, underneath too. By the way, is there any plastic ground cover under the addition ?

After the seepage is cured ,if you throw up those studs and add insulation to the walls plus sheet rock,-your basement will have temperature control.

By the way,any windows in your basement ?

[Warpy]

5. You have several issues

First, the cold in the addition. Insulating the floor is a great first step, but you need to find out what they did in the ceiling and walls, and that's going to involve a visual examination. Unfortunately, the lack of insulation under the floor bodes ill. You can often take electrical plates off and have enough room around the box to tell whether or not there is pink insulation in the walls. If there is, you're good to go. If not, you're going to have to consider something like blown in insulation in both ceiling and walls. In addition, you're going to have to figure out how to stop drafts that aren't the result of uninsulated, icy walls. That means finding out where they are and plugging them. Closing off an addition with a bathroom is a very bad idea because of the possibility of allowing pipes to freeze and burst.

You need to find out where the water is entering the basement. The fix is digging down the outside of the foundation and waterproofing it plus making sure the ground slopes away from the house. Any leaking gutters need to be replaced. The drain is a good deal, but constant water coming through the foundation is not. Fix that puppy before it weakens your foundation. You certainly have no way to finish that basement until the problem is solved.

Fire barrels are nice, but carbon monoxide poisoning is not. Keep them outside.

You might consider installing a wood stove for supplementary heat on the coldest days.

One suggestion for supplementary heating is the Econoheater: http://www.eheat.com/ Just make sure your electrical service can handle as many panels as you might need in basement and addition bathroom.

[Kolesar]

6. Get an energy audit where they depressurize the house and look for leaks

...by testing the air pressure at places all over your home. "Infiltration" is usually the biggest heat loss. You may have to reheat the air in your house several times an hour as it is.

We found a consultant through a reference from the Ohio government. You may be able to get a reference from your gas supplier.

I am a big advocate of blown-in cellulose as opposed to fiberglass batts/rolls. Cheaper, renewable, and is better at stopping drafts.