"To the Basement - Time to Insulate" Topic

I'm itching just thinking about it.
The walls are framed, subfloor is in.
Electric and Heating rough-ins complete.

I cannot avoid it anymore, time to put up the insulation.
Pain is, since we have high ceilings, I can't use the pre-cut batts, which means I have to cut to length, which means more little tiny shards of fiberglass to spread the "love"

Oh Joy!

For a basement, especially – take a look at sprayed foam.

It will cost a bit more, but handles a lot of basement issues better. Plus, there is no itching to deal with. We used it in ours and I don't think I will ever go back to fiberglass.

Why not use foam board? Sure you have to cut it and then you can plastic seal it. it should work fine. Don't know about the cost however.
VR
James Mattes

- Sprayed foam: We are not rocking the ceiling, and not putting the drop ceiling yet, so there would be too many places for the foam to escape.

- Foam Board: too expensive for a comparable "R" value (i'm putting R-19 in, only upside is extra terrain material.

Funny that was the main reason I was thinking of Foam board! I don't know what the R value is but all that left over would be great!
VR
James Mattes

I was talking to a general contractor that told me he and his guys always spray themselves down head to toe with the cheapest hair spray available before they work with the fiber glass insulation. It is suppose to make you tiny fiber repellent, he claims they work insulation jobs itch free. I have not tried it myself, but I plan to next time I must work with the fiberglass insulation.

LLC aka Ron

Foam board has a higher R value usually, doesn't compress from it's own weight after the wall is sealed up, and is much easier to work with. Recent quote from our local hardware store here was a 2ft x 8ft, 2 inch thick board for $18 USD ea.

I checked the "stock" in the Garage, not sure if it is 1.5 or 2" but sowing an "R" value of 7.5, way shy of 19…

Seriously…double check your assumptions.

We used spray foam because we hadn't rocked the ceiling and I added a false floor. When we sprayed, we sprayed everything – blocking off around pipes and electricals for access later. By doing as much we achieved what would be the equivalent of 6 inches of fiberglass insulation with only 3 inches of foam.

Fiberglass is a good product…if it is installed properly. Most of the time it isn't installed properly, so you can plan on cutting the rated R-Value in half. The various issues with air leakage around studs and over compression of the batts makes the rating (for fully lofted fiberglass with no air gap) can get tossed out the window.

Rigid foam is a bit on the pricey side – by kicks the crap out of fiberglass for R-value. It has an added benefit of being able to be sealed using gap filling foam to seal up all the rough fitting areas – something that you can't do with fiberglass well.

When doing large areas, you will also want to get bulk pricing from a builders supply store as opposed to the per sheet price from hardware type stores. When buying a pallet of rigid foam (it comes in standard 2x thicknesses too) you can expect to pay about half what the sheet cost is. To make things more fun – you can get that quote from a builders supply store for a pallets worth and then go to a big box like Lowes or Home Depot and buy single sheets at that cost due to price matching policies.

BTW – the blue/pink/yellow foam is 7.5 per inch. Fiberglass is around half that according to DoE ratings. Don't go off the manufacturers labels as they tend to over rate the R-value.

Well, thanks for the info, but the job is done!