"Matt Williamson" wrote:

I have a family room in my house that is basically 3 outside walls. One wall
faces my uninsulated garage, another the side of my house and the back wall
is the back of my house with a florida room. The back wall also has a
woodburning fireplace. There is wood paneling lining all of the walls. The
room is very cold in the winter and I think more insulation would help. The
existing stuff looks very thin. It's maybe 2" thick and it looks like yellow
fiberglass type with foil backing. I'm ripping down the paneling and putting
up drywall and I'm trying to determine what the existing R-value is and what
I should add to make it a little better. I know the wood fireplace is a huge
air draft that just sucks heat out. I plan on putting in a gas insert to
make that more efficient. Here is a link to a couple of pics I took of the
insulation. http://mysite.verizon.net/vzev0tzm/id1.html Click the thumbs to
get a full size pic. What would be my best option for this room? Can I just
add more over top of the old or should I replace it with something better
altogether?


For w-NY you can sure use some more insulation in those walls. I
agree with the Canadians who suggested making the wall thicker &
re-doing the insulation.

But if this is on a slab- your first thought will be to dig around the
outside and put in some perimeter insulation. . . . And if it is
full of windows- you want to re-think them. . . . and if there is
no insulation overhead, you need to get some there.

THEN. . . do the walls.

Jim