Ceiling Panels and Intumescent Primer

Goodbye, ceiling insulation! Hello, an almost finished surface?

I want as many nice, clean, flat surfaces in my house as I can manage, so when it came time to choose a material to close in my ceiling, I did not go with the knotty pine tongue and groove boards that so, so, so many tiny housers choose. 

No, I went with plywood. So glamorous, right? Not...

Floor Box - Day 19

(3.5 hrs)

Today we installed two more pieces of subfloor plywood (it's halfway done now), roughed in the sink and shower drain lines, and finished the floor insulation.

It sounds so easy when I condense it down to one sentence! The full story after the jump...

Floor Box - Day 18

(2.5 hrs)

Now things are happening! Today I busted out the Roxul rock wool insulation and started installing it in the Tyvek-lined bays of the floor. I thought it would take a longer time than it did; the rock wool was quite quick and easy to work with.

As a reminder, rock wool is made principally from slag--waste rock--from the steel industry. It is melted down and blown or spun into tiny filaments, then pressed into insulating batts (i.e., soft, wooly, but cohesive rectangles of material, like felt). Fiberglass is the only other common type of insulation that comes in batts, and it has a terrible reputation for being nasty, noxious stuff that will irritate your skin, lungs, and every mucous membrane it touches. Rock wool is pretty lovely, in comparison, so I don't think I strictly needed to wear long sleeves, gloves, and a mask... but it was a little dusty, and I was feeling sensitive, so I did.

Floor Box - Day 14-17

DAY 14 (Wednesday, January 21) (2.75 hrs): Today my task was to spray Great Stuff Gaps and Cracks expanding foam in the gap between the trailer and the floor box. Great Stuff is closed-cell polyurethane foam and has an insulating R-value of 6.6 per inch. Since the gap is about half an inch on all sides, that means it will provide about R-3.3 between the trailer and floor box. What does that mean? I don't know exactly, but something good, I'm sure. It will also keep water and air from infiltrating up through that gap and coming in contact with the subfloor, which is probably even more important than the R-value.

I was a little concerned about the foam's performance in cold weather. The label said that low temperatures would adversely affect its performance, and all I could find online is that the ideal operating temperature for Great Stuff is about 70ºF. It was 45ºF today and... it worked just fine. Pshhhaw, worrying for nothing!

The Going Green Home - Part 2: Insulation

(The Going Green Home - Part 1: Introduction)

Photo by Jude Hill. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, via Flickr

Insulation is nominally simple. It's usually fluffy or foamy, airy stuff that fills your walls, ceiling, and floor and keeps the heat where you want it: inside in the winter, outside in the summer. Insulation reduces the need to keep the heater (or air-conditioner) going full-tilt 24/7. Big energy-saver... if not life-saver, depending on where you live!