This is a blog about the trials and tribulations of performing a Deep Energy Retrofit (DER) on your own house. For a more complete description of the project visit the project details.
A Word on Insulation
During the planning stages of this project, we had come up with a few strategies to create a thick layer of insulation and a primary air barrier using dense-packed cellulose and a fabric such as Pro Clima's Mento Plus. Using this type of...
Demo and Framing the Roof
Once the decision was made to rip off the old roof and replace it with new, we just needed to figure out the details. This involved a little measuring, a little work on the computer and a few strings pulled so we could properly visualize...
Begining the Roof
Once the floor system was stabilized, it was time to see what was going on with the roof. In years past, we had a few problems with ice dams. Ice dams are caused when snow on the roof is melted by warm, interior air temperatures. The...
Rim Joist and Piers
After we exposed the rim joist, we found a few other deficiencies. We jacked and straightened the rim joist (more of a beam in this case). The rim joist was made up of a double 2x8, this was not strong enough to support the loads between...
Oh Snap!
So… as indicated by the condition of the plywood we had some rot at the bottom plate and rim joist. We had some friendly neighborhood carpenter ants in there as well. This is a good example of how quickly a small maintenance issue can turn into a much larger,...
Re-Boot!
Well, we are back. After a long while, and after realizing our initial plan of a complete retrofit and participating in National Grid's DER pilot program would have been too costly for us and too time consuming to do 'on the side', we have reevaluated. That is,...
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