Embarking on a new project: Insulating my entire house.

I’m taking Barack Obama’s advice and insulating my house so that it can be heated by a candle. No, we’re not heating with a candle, it would ruin the indoor air quality. Just kidding.

Over the next few days, we will lay out the plan for insulating our little semi-attached row house and then get prices and do it, hopefully before the cold weather sets in. Our house is at the end of a row of 4 houses in the Kensington section of Brooklyn. Our heating bills have been double those of our next-door-neighbor who benefits from the heated spaces in our house.

Here’s the general plan – we’ll attack 1 area at a time, starting from the top down.

1. Roof: The area below the roof and above the 2nd floor ceiling is called a cock-loft. It is currently uninsulated and unvented. I want to blow in insulation and vent it to prevent mold build-up and heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer.

2. Exterior Wall: We have approximately 800 SF of wall which faces a community garden. It is brick construction with a layer of stucco, now cracked in many places. There are 3 windows on the wall which will need to be dealt with carefully. Our idea is to insulate the wall and paint it so that it can receive a mural painted by a community group.

3. Basement ventilation: We installed a fan a few years ago to ventilate the Basement. Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication with the contractor, we ended up with the kind of vent that has a cover manually controlled by a chain which basically means we have an 8 inch diameter hole in the Basement wall.

4. Boiler Room: The boiler room is located adjacent to the exterior wall and is completely uninsulated. The plan is to insulate the room as well as the boiler, hot water heater and all exposed pipes

Ellen