Renovation spiral: WWYD

5 years ago

We're renovating our 1800sqft house and adding a master suite. We've been in the house 17 yrs and have previously replaced the siding and roof, so the project scope called for adding new Hardie to the back of the house where the master will be added on top of an existing addition. When they did the demo and began to prep for ordering windows (we're replacing all existing), they discovered that the original part of our house, built in 1951, has no insulation and some wonky framing. Apparently it's just plywood! After much discussion with the architect and structural engineer, our options are either to leave it as is (adding some drywall over the plywood for $5k) or rip off all the siding, add insulated sheathing from the outside, and install new siding, gutters and trim. That option is $40k. I had hoped there might be some middle road but apparently not.

My husband thinks we should leave it as is; we've survived there 17 years without realizing that parts of the house had no insulation, and we may be approaching the saturation point of fixing up a small old house on a busy street in an area where teardowns run $1m. My feeling is that we do things right - it's crazy to spend six figures on renovations and leave parts of the house uninsulated. I think I know where Houzzers will come out on this, but would welcome any advice.

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Comments (4)

Jennifer
5 years ago
What else would you do with $35K? That could be a very nice vacation (or three.) What would insulation do to your energy bill and can you calculate a pay-back time span? When you sell your house, the new owner will be like you and assume it is insulated meaning you won't get extra $ when you sell. As you state in your title, you may be in a "spiral". Get some perspective before you decide.
smalloldhouse_gw thanked Jennifer
ptreckel
5 years ago
Legal minds and real estate mavens here might want to reflect on this... If and when you decide to sell your home, is this something that would have to be “disclosed”? In other words, acknowledged as an issue? Not that this should necessarily be the driving issue as YOU decide what to do. But it might be something that will deter some buyers if it must be disclosed. Any experts out there???
smalloldhouse_gw thanked ptreckel
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Seabornman
5 years ago
Are your heating bills reasonable? If so, I'd leave it as is. Why can't cellulose be blown in the stud cavities? There's a whole industry based on doing that.
smalloldhouse_gw thanked Seabornman
smalloldhouse_gw
Original Author
5 years ago
Reasonable is a relative term! We have pulled out space heaters for certain spaces, although I always attributed that to a prior renovation that had left one long room with inadequate vents.

In terms of blowing in insulation, the wonky framing in the original part of the house is a problem. My architect, who works in a lot of homes like mine in the neighborhood, said she'd never seen anything like it. Here's what the engineer said: "the 2x4 (on side) and the two layers of plywood are the integrated structural system. And we can not remove any part of the system to add insulation. We can only add to it from the interior or exterior." Adding from the interior would require reframing the walls plus adding drywall on top, shrinking all the space a bit and dismantling our kitchen that was renovated 5 years ago and not included in this project. My guess is that the exterior option is easier for everyone, and has some cosmetic benefits... but is a big cost we didn't anticipate.

While I'm not surprised that demo revealed more work than we originally anticipated, I am surprised that this framing issue never came up before. The previous owners did two major renos in the 1980s; building a full second story on what was originally a small Cape, and then adding a 1-story 20x26 addition off the back. Both of those are framed properly although would benefit from higher R insulation as well. We had new siding put on about 15 years ago and swapped out 2 or 3 windows that were leaking about 6 years ago, then redid the kitchen. How did no one notice?