A Solstice update on the insulation scheme

Those few, those happy few, who have followed this blog from inception might be curious what all that crazy stuff I did when rebuilding the addition is doing.

The summer solstice was a nice clear sunny day. This was the highest solar insolation of the year, so it was a good time to see what all that work was worth.

While the day wasn't particularly hot, the sun was certainly clear and sharp.



Folks might recall the exterior walls on the addition are double studded. A wall inside a wall, with no mechanical connection between the interior wall, and the exterior wall. This was intended to cut down on the thermal bridging effect of the wall studs carrying the energy from the outside through the wall studs to the inside, and vice versa.



After the exterior stud cavities were caulked and sealed. Unfaced R19 fiberglass batts were added to the exterior wall cavities. Then the interior stud cavities were closed with 2" XPS R10 foam boards. Then the wall was closed with drywall, blah blah blah.
So, let's see how that worked



This within a few minutes of true solar noon, so the sun is hitting the exterior siding at a pretty steep angle, so the insolation is low. But the siding temp is pretty telling.



And right on the other side of the wall? Not too shabby.



For comparison, this is an interior partition wall, not exposed on either side to the outside. Almost exactly the same temp. (well, as far as my thermal probe will say). So, I'd say the thermal barrier is working, at least from a conduction perspective. The inside temp, absent any energy forcing, will equalize with the exterior. But what it's not doing, is adding much temp.
Okay, now for the big stuff.



Folks might recall this major headache. The roof is a standard 3/12 pitch asphalt shingle over decking truss roof with ridge vents. I added 1/2 foil faced polyiso to the ceiling cavities leaving a 1" gap between the underside of the roof and the reflective face of the polyiso. The idea was to trap the radiant heat from the underside of the deck, and create a convection current that would carry that energy from the under eve soffits to the ridge vent, without heating up the low attic space. A radiant barrier.




From there, along the low wall edge, added 2 layers of 2" XPS for R20 right over the wall, then adding unfaced batts as space permitted. Going from R20 to R40 in very short order.



Then to R38 unfaced. Then I closed the ceiling with paper faced R12. I'm hoping for R40/R50 on average across the ceiling/roof. So, let's see what we got.



With 20 minutes of high noon, this is the temp of the roof.




There's a small section of roof that is still shaded by the nice shagbark hickory. Now I know that cleaning gutters is kinda a pain the neck, but for those folks who think that having trees over the house is a bad thing.
Anyway, moving along, ,



This is the temp under the lip of the ridge vent. This is as close to measuring the temp of the air coming out of the attic as I could measure.




This is the underside of the ridge vent. The color of the ridge vent itself is adding some energy. In the winter, this extra heat should help force the convection.



This is the temp of a roof truss above the radiant barrier. This should be pretty close to the ambient attic air minus the radiant aspect.



And this is the temp of that same roof truss below the radiant barrier. All in all, I'd say that thin little piece of polyiso was well worth the time, money and effort.



And this is the temp of the ceiling below the area measured above. This incorporates the effect of the insulation batts. All in all, I'd call it a success.

Again, I'l stress that insulation merely insulates, the inside and outside temps will equalize given enough time. But I'm not adding much heat from the structure itself, and I'm slowing down the heat of the day by a pretty fair amount.

It works.

I'm going to change the name of this blog

I'm going to change the name of this blog. I can't believe how long it's been.

 I wanted to have some pics to share before I posted again, and of course, lack of bandwidth and access have kept me from posting anything.

Anyway, I have been doing stuff for the last 2 weeks.

I call this one 'Steampunk Rustic':











Okay, I'm skipping along pretty quickly just to get it done. Sorry for the lack of details:
The building of Eagle Spirit Door (bedroom)

Kreg Jig Hint #1, use paraffin on the drillbit. Goes much more smoothly.

Step 1: into the planer.

Step 2: out of the planer. Reset, Repeat, over and over and over and over again. I spent days planing this hemlock.


Speaking of planes, Tracey and I were up the local Re-Store (one of our favorite spots) and I found this old rusty plane for $5. It was literally a chunk of rust. But I gambled the $5. Got it back to the homestead and carefully managed to work it apart.



I managed to get something like a surface on the shoe after a LOT of work. The shoe was broken and welded, and will never be flat again. You can see the weld to the right of the slot. The frog is a style I've never seen before. It's def a Bailey style plane, but it's not a Stanley #4, or #5, or #6,7,8 or 9 either. In fact, I'm not sure it's a Stanley at all.



After a few hours of work, I eventually got a serviceable plane. The blade needs to be re edged, but it works. Sadly, I broke the handle while sanding it, but I'm pretty sure it was already going. Looks and feels like walnut to me. But it works.
Okay, moving along;



One of the pieces of hemlock looks a bit dodgy, and I considered ripping the dodgy bit off the board before planing it, but I wanted to hoard the wide pieces, so I choose to plane it and see what I ended up with, and this showed up. I call it Spirit Eagle. It will be the feature of the bedroom door.



Still Life with Titebond.



Eagle Spirit Door coming together



I'm slowly managing to move the woodshop into the cabin crib. The far stack of boards is Eagle Spirit, the near stack is the laundry room door. It will be a pocket door.





The Tardis is almost done.

And I can't wait to finally be able to take a shower.
And that's the news from Cold Comfort.

It occurred to me that I need

it occurred to me that I need to change the title of this blog, as I'm not coming even close to updating every day.

That said, though it's been weeks, I've actually been doing stuff. My concern, and the reason I've not posted is because I didn't really have much of anything to say, as I felt like I wasn't getting anything done. Well, For what it's worth, here it is.

I think I left off here:




Well, here's the jig for resawing the old flooring:




Did I say something before about Freud saw blades? I think I did. Anyway, moving right along:



Same doorway treatment into the bedroom, and now the anteroom has a finish-y feel to it. Moved some of the Davis furniture in, and started sleeping on the futon, instead of in the tent-cot. Big change, feels good.

Then on to other stuff, with that milestone reached:

On the words of Dave Hickey, one of the premier DIY'ers on this planet, I bought one of those Kreg jigs, and now it's time to put it to work.
remember all that hemlock?


First cabinet I've built in a long time.



massive amounts of sanding, and a lot of messy stuff trying to get the base to play well with the whackiness of the level of the floor, or rather, the distinct lack thereof.

yes, that's a laundry sink. The bathroom (in-house, rather than out-house) will be a laundry sink. Just makes more sense that those tiny little basins. This is me, shrugging.

So, more kreg jig fun:



Plane it, plane it, and plane it again. Days spent planing, thinking it's right, then planing some more.



Eventually, I got sick of planing, and set the pockets, and started the glue up.



Ready for the battens.



Batten door, one each. Hemlock with an inlay of Sassafras.

(and days of sanding and sanding and more sanding go by)



"finished" (if you can call it that) with Formby's. Because it's easy, and to be fair, if you work it hard enough, it actually looks okay.



Spent today at Cold Comfort doing a final coat of Formby's, cutting in the hinges, the old-school way, by eye and by hand with chisels, and yeah, I used a level, it helps. Hung the door. And here it is. Nope, not done, I failed to take into account how much the floor drops from the wall towards the center of the room, so I need to relieve an inch or so from the bottom of the door so that it will open all the way. Binds up close to the bathroom exterior wall. Folks have suggested cutting a crescent moon into the door, and in fairness, the composter needs ventilation to work correctly. But I think pulling warm air under the door is a better fit. Besides, (and here's your trivia for the day) If I cut a crescent moon in to the door, that would make this 'in-house' (not out-house, 'cause it's inside) the women's. See, the crescent moon is the woman's outhouse. The men's outhouse has a sun carved on the door for the vent. Now, since men just use the woods anyway, the men's outhouse usually fell into disrepair and the woman's outhouse had to be maintained. So, all we now know of any outhouse, are those with the crescent moon, as the sun outhouses rotted into the ground long ago.

And that's all from Cold Comfort today.

Except maybe,



This is Erustepholis Davis, or Ed as we call him. He's come up to live at Cold Comfort, and he's most welcome.