Basement repair and insulation in Southbridge, MA

Wednesday, August 31st, 2022 by Nivia Easterling

Challenge

Does your basement or crawl space have old dirty pink insulation hanging from the ceiling, is mold developing from condensation?

Our building Science specialist inspected this home and found some areas of concern in their basement. The “Rim Joist” is the perimeter of the floor framing system along the exterior of the house. This home was not insulated and never air sealed. The results of not having your rim joist insulated could create cold floors, drafty uncomfortable rooms, higher heating and cooling bills, and more condensation. Another problem making this home uncomfortable is the moldy, moisture-damaged, delaminated fiberglass insulation in the basement. Some of the fiberglass insulation was pulled by gravity away from the subfloor sagging down and not properly placed. This ultimately rendered the insulation useless. The fiberglass insulation has paper and organic material in the resin used to set the fibers into a batt - both are mold food. This homeowner was dealing with mold and smelly insulation that was not providing any insulation value. The uninsulated poured concrete basement walls also needed to be insulated. Your poured concrete wall basement walls are buried in the cool earth and are perpetually cold - about 17 º F cooler than we like our interior homes to be. In the winter heat is wasted, and in the summer, warm humid air from outside hits your cold basement walls, and condensation forms, supporting mold.

Solution

Fogarty’s Home Services helped to fix this homeowner's uncomfortable home!

Fogarty’s Home Services' first step to fixing this uncomfortable home was removing existing fiberglass batts. This step is necessary to have a healthy home. After this process, your space is ready to be properly insulated. We first begin with spray foaming the rim joist with two-part expanding spray foam. Our spray foam has a high insulation value per inch of R7, and because it expands, it seals all cracks, gaps, and joints where air from the outside enters your home. After this process, the results are warmer floors in the winter, fewer drafts, more comfortable rooms, and your house will be easier to heat and cost less to heat, less summertime condensation on the cold basement surface. To finish the insulation in this homeowner's basement we installed our polyiso foam insulation boards on the basement walls with proprietary foam-tite fasteners. This is not just any foam - Fomax polyiso foam has the flame retardant properties to satisfy building codes to leave it exposed in a basement - unlike expanded or extruded polystyrene foam (EPS, XPS). In addition, the Foamax polyiso board has a foil to reflect heat so the insulation isn’t doing all the work by itself.

Results - Warmer, more comfortable basement, warmer floors above the basement, less condensation in the summertime lower fuel bills house is easier to heat.