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aemeijers aemeijers is offline
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Default how to find out if walls of house are insulated?


"Bob F" wrote in message
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"Joe" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Jul 27, 12:45 pm, "Bob F" wrote:

How hot are the inside walls when the sun is on the outside of the same
area?


relatively cool, but I checked the walls on the inside of the
uninsulated garage and the inside wall was barely warm. so maybe the
heat wouldn't transfer all the way to the inside wall.

How old is the house?


54 years old


Remove outlet plates on outside walls, and look for insulation outside
the box.


only one oulet gives me enough room to see outside the box. I see an
empty area but I also saw something shiny like tin foil.


The foil suggests the possibility of insulation. The age suggests no
insulation

The wire probe and the energy audit suggested by others would both be good
ideas.

You can buy oversize outlet covers, and enlarge the crack around the outlet
box. Seeing foil is actually a bad sign, since the only shiny insulation in
that era would be Z-fold foil. Kinda sorta a combination vapor barrier and
IR reflective layer. It helped a little, but not much. I'd budget to have
the walls blown. If outside is sided, they can pull 2 strips of siding, one
high and one low, and do it that way. (Don't let them do it through the
siding and use those damn snap-caps- even if the paint holds, they stick out
like sore thumbs.) If house needs resided anyway, they can blow, plus add a
layer of foam under the siding. If outside is brick, you are looking at
doing it from interior, and doing a lot of drywall patching, unless you like
the crown mold and tall baseboard look.

If there is a company with a thermal camera in your town, have them come out
first cool day, and they can tell you in five minutes what walls and roof
areas are insualated enough to notice. I wanted it done here, but no local
company offers it.

aem sends...