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2006 IRC High Performance Housing Basement Insulation FAQ Sheet
Heat loss through uninsulated basement walls can account for up to one-third of the heat loss from an average home. Installing insulation on basement walls is often inexpensive, easy to accomplish and frequently combined with “finishing the basement.”
Heat loss from basements accounts for a significant portion of the energy loss from a home. In many jurisdictions, basement insulation is a building code requirement. Cost usually determines the type of insulation system used.
Buildings used to be constructed over cellars. Cellars were dank, dark places where coal was stored. People never intended to live in cellars. Now we have things called basements that have pool tables, media centers and play rooms.
Cellars were easy to construct – rubble, stone, bricks and sometimes block. If they got wet or were damp so what? Basements are different. They are not easy to construct if we intend to live in them. They need to be dry, comfortable and keep contaminants out.
Over the last 50 years there has been a notable expansion of living space. The useful conditioned space of building enclosures is expanding to the outer edge of the building skin (Figure 1). Attics, crawlspaces, garages and basements are valuable real estate that are being used to live in or used for storage or places to locate mechanical systems. Basements are viewed by many as cheap space that can easily be incorporated into a home. Keeping basements dry, comfortable and contaminant free is proving to be anything but simple.
Basements need to be dry for reasons of indoor air quality, pest control, and durability of the building.
Many concerns, including the rising cost of energy, climate change concerns, and demands for increased comfort, have lead to the desire for increased insulation levels in many new and existing buildings. Building codes are improving to require higher levels of thermal control than ever before for new construction. This report considers a number of promising foundation and basement insulation strategies that can meet the requirement for better thermal control in colder climates while enhancing moisture control, health, and comfort.
The rim joist, band joist, or any area that connects building components, are particularly problematic to air seal properly.
An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. It’s pretty easy to deal with new basements. If you want a challenge try dealing with century old houses sitting on top of rubble foundations. These houses are not going away and sooner or later we are going to have to fix them and insulate them.
The research reported in this paper is aimed at increasing the understanding of the hygrothermal performance of interior basement insulation systems by a combination of field monitoring of four assemblies and one-dimensional computer modeling.
Soil gas moves through holes due to a pressure difference. Since we cannot eliminate the holes, the only thing we can do is control the pressure.
The American Foursquare, a Sears, Roebuck & Co. kit home, was a staple of small American towns between 1908 and 1940. More than 100,000 of them were built in America. Homes built prior to 1980 make up 80% of the housing stock in the United States, and are responsible for a majority of the residential energy use in the country. All of the renovations used systems engineering principles to ensure good indoor air quality and longterm durability while providing deep energy reductions. This posting is permission of ASHRAE. Additional reproduction, distribution, or transmission in either print or digital form is not permitted without ASHRAE's prior written permission.
Can a 150-year-old house approach zero energy use? Three case studies point the was from the 19th to the 21st century. Reprinted with permission from Fine Homebuilding, April/May 2008, pages 51-57.
Top ten blunders that rot your house, waste your money, and make you sick. Reprinted with permission from Fine Homebuilding Magazine, April/May 2004, pages 52-56.
