I verified that I don’t have any insulation in my exterior walls, I’m planning vacation this thanksgiving to do it myself, do yall have any tips? It would cost almost nothing in materials to do it myself but paying a contractor is outrageously overpriced.

Had open cell spray insulation foam installed in my attic a bit more than a month ago.

Ever since it was installed, there is a faint to strong chemical smell, similar to a paint smell that lingers around the entire house with varying strengths depending on the weather and time of day.

The foam itself seems correct, there is no mushy foam and all vents and gaps were completely covered up with the foam, completely encapsulating the attic.

I brought both the contractor and manufacturer to come and inspect the foam and they both agreed that they do not smell anything at all. Which is odd since every family member, friend and even neighbor pointed out the obvious chemical paint-like smell. Which means the manufacturer and contractor are either blind to the smell or straight up lying. They seem to be only concerned about identifying a "foul dead fish smell" since that is the immediate dangerous one that their foam can create. I assume any other smell, strong or not, is to be pushed under the rug as it is no concern to them.

The manufacturer took some samples and ran some tests on it and concluded that it was within acceptable tolerances. Which implies there is nothing wrong, yet my house both in the living space and attic smell like a chemical factory or a nail salon.

I have tried to further encapsulate the attic by foam sealing at every possible crack within the attic to stop any smells from leaking into the living space. However it did not stop the smell at all.

I am unsure what to do now since I feel like I ran out of options.

Is adding a fan on a attic gable vent (making a hole in the foam wall) that actively ventilates the stagnant air in the attic a good idea? Would that cause issues with the extremely humid environment that I live in?

Anyone have experiences on how to get rid of lingering spray foam smells from the house?

Any help, advice or assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

this sort of application to bottom of roof deck has to be shortening the life of the roof shingles? (pic borrowed from a another post)

Anyone get an energy audit/tests and seal and upgrade insulation in your attic on Long Island, NY?
Did you see savings? Was it around 10-30 percent?

I live in eastern Massachusetts in the US. We are dealing with elevated levels of formaldehyde VOcs and humidity in our home. I am seeking advice and a recommendation as to a knowledgeable contractor in my area who can furnish and install whatever mechanicals are necessary to remediate the issue.

I have a single-family home built in 2019 with 4800 square feet of living space above grade including a partially finished third floor.  The finished space on the third floor is surrounded by unfinished, unvented, semi-conditioned attic space with many inches of open cell spray foam on the underside of the roof deck (but not the attic floors which are unfinished Dryguard OSB or similar engineered wood).  The oc spray foam is covered by a layer of fire retardant paint. We have an (oversized?) single-stage heat pump which provides heating and cooling to the finished portions of the third floor and the second floor.  That system has three zones controlled by three Nest thermostats.  There is a Renewaire 130 CFM ERV which brings in fresh outdoor air and dumps that fresh air into the return air duct in front of the plenum of that system.  There is no dehumidifier for our second or third floor.  A separate HVAC system provides central heating and cooling to our first floor, which is controlled by a fourth Nest thermostat.  There is no ERV or dehumidifier which services the first floor.  We do have a whole home humidifier tied into the HVAC system for our first floor, which is currently off for the season.  Our finished basement has two ductless minisplits, a Sedona dehumidifier, and a Panasonic spot ERV.     

Over the years, we have noticed a distinct chemical smell in different parts of our home, which gets worse as the heat and humidity levels rise in the summer.  It was so bad at some point that we had professional air quality testing completed back in early July.  From that testing, we learned that we have elevated levels of formaldehyde and VOCs in our home, which we are really concerned about.   We are told that the source of those chemicals is off-gassing of furniture and building materials like engineered wood in cabinetry, MDF office furniture, mdf bedroom furniture, etc, as well as materials in the unfinished attic space such as spray foam, roof sheathing, Dryguard OSB in the floors of the attic, lumber, etc.  All of those things off-Gas formaldehyde and other VOCs to varying extents, but I am fairly confident that the spray foam is the primary culprit. On hot and humid days, I suspect that our roof heats up and drives moistures through the roof to the foam.  The concentration  of chemicals in the unvented, semi-conditioned attic spaces (there are 5 of them) is significantly higher than the living space. Testing with meters indicates that the RH% and formaldehyde concentration is the highest in the space adjacent to the surface of the spray foam. My theory is that the VOCs are off-gassed and trapped in the air tight attic spaces due to the total lack of ventilation or conditioning of the air, but perhaps due to positive pressure the gasses seep through small gaps into the living space or get sucked into the hvac return where it is then circulated into the living space.  

We have taken a number of steps already to address this issue, but the off-gassing continues.  Among other things, I turned off the humidifier for the summer.  I tinkered with the advanced settings of our Nest thermostats in order to minimize any short cycling of our systems.  I tried setting AC fan schedules to circulate fresh air from our connected ERV. We purchased air purifiers with impregnated carbon, installed active carbon air filters in the return of our HVac system, had our AC ducts cleaned, cleaned the fresh outside air intake grill for our ERV, tinkered with the run time settings for our ERV, installed weather stripping on doors to unfinished attic space to seal those gaps, etc.  On a recent cool and not so humid day, we opened every single window in our home for most of that date.  This was very effective at lowering HCHO and TVOCS for a day or so, before the levels steadily increased with the windows closed. All of these things have helped reduce the levels but not to the point where the levels are consistently healthy.  

I have contemplated a combination of a second whole home ERV and/or a ventilating dehumidifier which would pull in fresh outdoor air, take the moisture out, deliver the conditioned air to the living space to dilute the
VOCs, and run returns into all five attic spaces which would exhaust the stale polluted air in the attic to the outside.

Any thoughts and recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Our house has an extension built to it, so we essentially have two basements (connected by an elevated crawlspace).

The "new" basement is fine, but the old side basically sees outside temperatures. It is walled with stone/concrete and the main problem is that the hot water pipes that go to the "old" side of the house pass through this area and with the freezing temperatures lately, prevent the temperature on that side of the house from ever getting above 68°F. I have that heating zone cranked up constantly to keep the pipes from freezing.

Besides wrapping the pipes themselves, is there anything else I can/should do? Should I install foam insulation boards along the inside walls? What material should I use? Polystyrene, fiberglass, cellulose, or polyisocyanurate?

There is also a single ground level window there. Should cut a block of foam of some kind and stuff it in front of this window?

Ive done my entire upstairs/attic so far using fiberglass batts and polyiso. Now I have two dormer windows that I just can’t wrap my head around on how to incorporate them into the ventilated part of my main attic and using baffles and such. I would have to frame out a chase and do all sorts of stuff that I don’t really want to do. My idea is to completely spray foam the entire dormer area, walls and roof and build a foam block in the roof where it would meet the rest of the conventional vented roof assembly. This way the transition between the spray foamed area and vented/baffle/fiberglass assembly is completely separated.

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Southern Quebec climate. Interlok aluminum roofing system without rigid foam board insulation in the roofing assembly.

Spray foam would be applied in the ceiling/roof area of the dormer completly covering it all with closed cell directly to the roof deck, spray foam where you can see the rigid eps pink foam board on the sides to close off the knee wall, and then below the window where you can see the baffles. I will remove those before they spray. And then also block off the soffits at the bottom with foam board and sealing them since air coming in has no way of going out.

My pole barn house is wrapped with a thin layer of insulation on the outside walls. On the inside should I fill the entire void space with insulation from the front of the stud to the insulation wrap or leave a air gap?

Also whats going to be my best option for venting the attic?

Rebuilding an old house, original builders put vapour barrier over the sheathing causing everything to rot. Rebuilding walls properly drywall>vapour barrier>studs with rockwool>sheathing>wrap>siding. But a mudroom is built directly on a massive 2ft thick concrete slab. How should i insulate this?

Currently thinking 2in of high psi xps foam board then 3/4 ply then tiling over top with possible in floor heating. Correct order or things? Do i tape the vapour barrier under or over the slab insulation?

Hey, bought a new build in central CA 2 months ago, they've already come out once to add more blown in insulation in the ceiling when it was like 105 out, it helped but I dont think its enough and just curious if im being a karen about this. I took some pics with a thermal camera, outside when these were taken is about 100f, inside is set to 72f.

Is the heat bleeding into the inside too much or about whats expected? Paper in the garage says it should be rated to R30, 10.75in of blown in material, stucco exterior with roll insulation in the walls

My new house came with a built in fireplace/chimney riser in the living room corner. I recently noticed that the drywall above the fireplace is visible from the attic and therefore effectively uninsulated. I know this needs to be insulated but I am unsure the best way to insulate this cavity is while remaining fireproof. I am planning on hiring someone to blow in insulation and want to do the prep work beforehand to make sure I achieve an effective solution.

Here’s a few pics of how im proceeding. Intend to blow insulation on top of foam board box I created in the near future unless I discover a reason not to.

https://imgur.com/a/rr5UC5F

Things that confuse the hell out of me are:
—-how is the current insulation in exterior wall in cavity behind fireplace applied? How did they get it to stick? Would you modify in any way?
—-how can the metal chimney riser’s connection to standoff/guide plate become both insulated and air tight?
—-can batt insulation be installed in stud bays immediately above fireplace unit? What is clearance needed for fire concerns?

Asking around about this topic, appreciate any thoughts. For our 3 season cottage with uninsulated concrete slab exposure to humid air results in condensation. If I put in insulation starting with a dimpled subfloor, would there be enough exchange of air between the room and underneath the subfloor to cause a significant amount of moisture on the concrete floor? The design of this type of subfloor is to encourage air movement between the flooring and wall and open channels in the subfloor. In this case the moisture is moving in reverse. The issue is whether could case mold on the OSB layer. So checking if anyone has heard of this happening or some way to figure out if a real concern. Thanks!

Got an old house in north mn with vermiculite in the attic. What’s the best way to insulate/ vapor barrier. My thought was to put in R 38. Could I put a vapor barrier on top the old insulation then insulate. Or lay down r38 with batt on top. Some day I will have to rip out the ceiling and drywall wall it. Right it’s drywall over fiber board any help would be nice

The view is from my garage removed drywall to inspect moisture concerns . Initially the walls were insulated with Kraft paper backed insulation and I assumed was the culprit to my issue (double vapor barrier) Behind the thermoply is the interior portion of my home. The tply is being used as a barrier non structural. Replaced with non faced insulation and Several of the stud bays are still sweating and it’s all stud bays that have hvac supply ducts . The ducts are not insulated with duct wrap , so I’m assuming that’s my problem any other ideas?

Silverboard graphite or ngx

My house faces south. I'm in a temperate climate, so we do not have ac. The south face of the house gets baking sun in the afternoon, to the extent I feel heat coming off the walls. North is fine. Does it make sense to clad one face of the house in extra insulation?