We did several energy-saving sustainability upgrades as part of our Delaware Project restoring a vacant historic home. The most important green upgrade, with biggest bang for the buck, was to better insulate the building. Many older homes, while well constructed, have no insulation in the walls. Installing costly energy-efficient new HVAC systems would do no good without properly insulating the house. In order to maintain the integrity of the historic exterior, as the home is in the Historic Meridian Park district, we chose to use blown-in cellulose insulation installed from the interior.
The costs for the insulation and rental equipment were affordable, but using contractors for the labor for would have far exceeded our meager budget. John was up to the do-it-yourself challenge, and helped to keep us on budget and on schedule. The house was built in 1916 and had hard and thick lath and plaster walls. The work was not easy, but not too hard, definitely worth it to reduce the longer-term energy costs for the home.
In the video series below John shows us how do to an interior blown-in insulation upgrade to an old lath-and-plaster house.
No problem. Good luck. Use a Dremel Saw-Max or Ultra-Max make your holes. – http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Tools/Pages/ToolDetail.aspx?pid=US40#.VH-QTmR4r85
Awesome set of clips. Everything I need to know to insulate the walls on a real house I am buying.
Thanks very much for doing these and now that I’ve watched this set I’ll find out what other great advice you have for me.