Scam Alert. Members are reminded to NOT send money to buy anything. Don't buy things remote and have it shipped - go get it yourself, pay in person, and take your equipment with you. Scammers have burned people on this forum. Urgency, secrecy, excuses, selling for friend, newish members, FUD, are RED FLAGS. A video conference call is not adequate assurance. Face to face interactions are required. Please report suspicions to the forum admins. Stay Safe - anyone can get scammed.
Dave, I've used the RockWool in my basement. Just too expensive for the garage. Approx $1.76 a sq. ft. compared to $0.98 a sq.ft. .
We had a couple nice (nicer) days here in Calgary over the weekend. I cranked up the furnace. Dried everything out. Resisted on parking the vehicle inside. This was the source of a lot of the moisture in the air.
I finally got a little chance to work on the electrical again and everything was going good with no frost at all on the walls. (Saturday, Sunday and Monday.) It dropped back down to -27c here tonight. With no insulation at all the furnace is struggling (running full time) to maintain 8C in the garage. I can only guess what my gas bill will be this month. So I shut down the furnace and will wait for the next chinook to roll in for the next stage. Vehicle is back inside. Nice blizzard going on with the -27c.
I can not see the R22 costing that much more then the R20. Am I missing something else? The R22 appears to be 5.5"inches thick and the R20 is 6" thick. That seems backwards.
Dave, I've used the RockWool in my basement. Just too expensive for the garage. Approx $1.76 a sq. ft. compared to $0.98 a sq.ft. .
We had a couple nice (nicer) days here in Calgary over the weekend. I cranked up the furnace. Dried everything out. Resisted on parking the vehicle inside. This was the source of a lot of the moisture in the air.
I finally got a little chance to work on the electrical again and everything was going good with no frost at all on the walls. (Saturday, Sunday and Monday.) It dropped back down to -27c here tonight. With no insulation at all the furnace is struggling (running full time) to maintain 8C in the garage. I can only guess what my gas bill will be this month. So I shut down the furnace and will wait for the next chinook to roll in for the next stage. Vehicle is back inside. Nice blizzard going on with the -27c.
I can not see the R22 costing that much more then the R20. Am I missing something else? The R22 appears to be 5.5"inches thick and the R20 is 6" thick. That seems backwards.
It could be that home depots website doesn't reflect the newer product technology. But that's just a guess.
Please humour me with some basics about insulation. Ie ignore me or stop reading if this is all obvious stuff.
The R value is just a rating for the heat conductivity of a given material. It is the denominator in a simple equation. An R value of 10 means that 1/10 of a watt of heat is passed through the insulation for each degree Celsius between the inside and outside per square meter. An R value of 20 means 1/20th of a watt per square meter per degree difference.
You can do some interesting calculations using this knowledge. Let's say it is 20C inside and - 20C outside. That's a 40C difference. If you have a 10 sq meter wall with R20 insulation, then 1/20 x 10 is 1/2 watt per degree x 40 C = 20 Watts of heat. In other words, a 20 watt light bulb will balance the heat lost through that 10m2 wall. Of course, there is also other walls windows and doors, a ceiling, and a floor to account for. These can all be added separately to determine the heating or cooling needs for the space.
It doesn't matter how thick the material is or what it is made of. The higher the r value, the better the insulation. Thin materials can be a better insulator than thick materials. Think aluminium frying pan handle VS wood. Wood is a good insulator compared to aluminium.
You can also stack the r values if you use several layers of insulation. Just be aware that insulation like the pink bats require a certain thickness to achieve their rating (usually based on the stud size - 2x4s or 2x6 or 2x8,etc) If you compress them to add another layer, you reduce their R value. Generally speaking, stacking is most useful in an attic where you can simply throw another layer on top or on a wall where you can add a foam insulation layer outside.
Hope that helps. Again, I apologize for the boring post if it was all obvious stuff.
@Perry , perhaps something to consider: would you be interested in a commercial insulation product vs the prosumer type you get at the big box stores?
If yes, contact Cory Reynolds at Total-R here in Calgary (no affiliation, I paid 100% for my insulation from them). You can mention my name if they ask you how you found out about them.
Here is how they operate: determine how much insulation and what type you need for your whole project (take the drawings in and they can help you determine how much of what you need). Decide on the product and place one order for the whole thing. You can pick it up yourself or they can deliver. They get so many stock deliveries per year (I think it is 4 times from Rockwool). If they have sufficient product in stock, you get it right away, otherwise you pre-order and have to wait.
What’s the advantage? Price. I put one layer of fireproof R12 in my big garage on all walls. It cost ~1/2 what the big box stores wanted for the stuff. Plus I got 3” thick material vs the 2” thick the BBS sell.
What’s the disadvantage? The insulation comes in big rolls. You cut it onsite to fit your studs. That is more work and less convenient. For example: I specified my second layer of R30 glass insulation at 5 feet wide, 9“ thick, 50’ per roll. I will now have to cut it into 24” wide strips before I can install it between the studs. Above the knee wall & ceiling, we used single faced, R30 blanket insulation. Those rolls were specified at 5 feet wide, 9” thick, 52 feet long. One blanket spans from one side up and over the ceiling down onto the other side. Was a bear to install, but is very efficient once in place.
Speaking of prices: they are all over the place these days and generally higher than even 2 years ago...
Moisture control is a whole other matter and a bit more difficult to explain.
For those who already understand it or who just don't care about the details, please skip this post.
At its core, moisture control is a relative humidity issue. Warm air holds more water than cold air. Relative humidity is a term that means the amount of water that is actually in the air VS the maximum amount of water that could be held in the air. Setting precise amounts and temperatures aside for just a moment, if a room at a given temperature is capable of holding a bucket of water, but is actually only holding a quarter of a bucket of water, then the relative humidity is 25%. Hot air can hold a crap load of water. Cold air can't hold much at all. The numbers are not linear so one cannot simply write a an easy formula to calculate them. HVAC people use what is called a psychometric chart to look up the actual numbers.
For those who are interested, Here is a photo of such a chart. The top left curve is the dew point line. The bottom line (x axis) is dry air at 0% humidity.
Not really a very easy graph to use. But feel free to print it out and play with it.......
Back to our room with a quarter bucket of water in it.
If you start cooling the room, without adding or removing any water, the relative humidity starts climbing because the maximum amount of water that the colder air can hold is diving. At some point in that dive, 100% relative humidity is reached. This point for that air is called "the dew point" because that is the temperature, for that air, with that amount of water in it, starts to condense and form droplets of water on the surfaces in the room. If the temp drops fast enough, fog will form. Even faster and it will start raining or snowing.
The problem with an insulated wall is that insulation usually entraps air to achieve a good insulating value. (Air that is trapped and not circulating is an excellent insulator). If that air contains any water vapour in it (as it usually does), the temperature drop will cause the water to condense inside the insulation and on the surface. In addition to causing mold, water is a poor insulator. So the R value deteriorates with water content. All bad stuff.
This is the reason for a moisture barrier. Warm inside air usually (but not always) holds more water in it than cold outside air - not just because it can, but also because we add more water to it from our own, sweat, boiling water, burning fuel, drying things, etc. We don't want that water to get inside the insulation or to reach the outside walls where it could condense due to the lower temperatures, so we install a plastic or metal vapour barrier on the inside wall to stop air from carrying that moisture into the wall where it could condense if the air was cooled down to its dew point.
With the exception of humidity controlled wall spaces, you only want the moisture barrier on the inside wall. Basically, you want the insulation to be able to "breathe" so that it always has the same moisture content as the cold outside air.
Closed cell foam insulation is ok because it works in both directions - the gas trapped inside it is dry and it is also a natural vapour barrier.
The obvious issue that arises with an inside vapour barrier hapoens when the inside air is cooler than the outside air. That's why air conditioning and/or dehumidifying is so important. The both keep the dew point below the actual temperature. It isn't practical to refrigerate or dehumidify the outside air. Mother nature does that for us - or not.
As with insulation, I provide this basic explanation only for the benefit of those who are interested.
@Dusty I grew up not too far from you, in Burlington.
Were you there for the great deep snows of '64? (or was it '63?) we had over 8 feet of snow on our front yard! shoveling the roof that year was a weekly occurrence... And cold! -27F and the cold Lake Ontario breeze to walk to school with... and few snow days that year...
@Dabler, just read this post not usually that far behind the curve. LOL
I was born 1938 (yes I'm 84 as of yesterday). Enlisted in the RCAF in 1955, wife and I and two young children were in France for the winters of 1963/1964. No snow, just overcast with dark sullen skies, almost constant rain and drizzle and our aircrew flew day and night. After all this was during the cold war years and Ivan (Russia) tried to play tricks.
Vaguely remember a storm sometime between 1945-1950, took days to shovel out, most everything came to a shuddering halt. Our family lived in Stoney Creek approximately eight miles from the center of Hamilton as you drive #8 Highway to Niagara Falls. First vehicle up our street was an old model 'A' with high axles and narrow wheels. The driver tied toboggans onto his rear bumper hauling us up and down the street very carefully of course. By that time most homeowners had shoveled their drives, started vehicles and our community finally came to life. It was several days before Dad was able to get back to work at Stanley Steel almost right next to the Steel Plant in Hamilton.
@Dabler, do you remember the old lift bridge near Burlington with the huge cement weighted ends that swung the bridge up that crossed the channel in and out of Hamilton harbor? Perhaps before your time.
Thanks @Tom O, now if I could just get my lame knee mobile again then life would be great. My mind says I'm 18, my body says something else.
It's been 5 full months post surgery and I'm still struggling, to see my therapist at our hospital this coming Thursday.
I think you are my new hero @Dusty. You have me beat by a decade, yet you are still fighting, and still enjoying your hobbies and still looking forward to many more good years to come. I'm impressed and hopeful to be the same.
Happy birthday Bill - and yes the lift bridge with teh cement counterweights was there whan I was growing up. Is it no longer there?
My dad was a millwright at Stelco from 1940-1980... My sister moved to Millen Rd in Stoney Creek around '63, and lived there until 2 years ago. (My sister is 79 in a few days)
Happy birthday Bill - and yes the lift bridge with teh cement counterweights was there whan I was growing up. Is it no longer there?
My dad was a millwright at Stelco from 1940-1980... My sister moved to Millen Rd in Stoney Creek around '63, and lived there until 2 years ago. (My sister is 79 in a few days)
@Dabbler, our old home is located at 205 Margaret Avenue one block east of Millen Road. Small world.
One of those counter weights broke free sending it into the pavement which closed down the access across the canal. Vehicles had to mooch around through Hamilton, Dundas, etc., to get to Toronto or in reverse back to Niagara Falls/Buffalo. Tough times back then for truckers,
prompting the Skyway bridge on the QE.
When I arrived in '62 then Skyway was under construction and the old lift bridge was sorta still there. I saw it and used Lakeshore a couple of years before that, when I lived in Brantford. My uncle had his house on the Stoney Creek side of the bridge, on the Hamilton side of the road, (when there were still houses on that side).
In those days, the houses and businesses on the lake side were a going thing, There was an arcade there and a place where you drove electric bumper cars. Very like Wasaga beach.
Very small word -- she owned 191 Millen Road - just around the corner!
Happy birthday Bill wishing you many more.
My travels to Stoney Creek take me to Millen Road as well, We would go to "Chuggy's" at Barton and Millen for a pint or two. @Dusty I see a link from one of your posts shows the old clock in Mj, they could use a hand from you although I can't see you climbing those stairs with a bum knee. Hopefully they get it going once it warms up a bit.
A Moose Jaw man is on a mission to save one of the city’s oldest landmarks. The Canadian Pacific Railway clock is over 99 years old and one of the first electric clocks in North America when it was built. It sits on top of the old railway station at the bottom of Main Street North. It was...
So I shut down the furnace and will wait for the next chinook to roll in for the next stage. Vehicle is back inside. Nice blizzard going on with the -27c. 
