[TheForge] Insulation (Was: 5 HP Motors)

[Mike Spencer]

Frosty quoth:

> We have 5" of urethane in the walls and 7" in the roof...

In *Alaska*?  I visited my friend from College, AK a few years ago
while he was building his (very respectable, 2.5 storey) retirement
cabin in balmy Leverett, Mass.  He had 2x6 walls that were to be
filled with insulation.  But all over the outside of the building he
had a lightweight framework of 12" stand-offs that were to hold an
additional 12" of insulation.  I think he must mean to get through the
winter on a 40 watt lightbulb and a box of matches -- the wooden
kitchen kind, of course. :-)

I'd never seen that before but I inferred, I guess incorrectly, that
this was normal for modern AK construction.

Out house has practically no frame.  Its walls are 3"x12",
up-and-down- sawn hemlock planks pinned together edgeways with
whittled 1" dowels and mortised into channels in the hand hewn sill
and plate.  Outside is 1" board and clapboard.  Inside is ca. 1"
standoff strips and either wainscoat of 1"x24" pine or lath and
plaster.  The corner posts are 8x8s, hewn out to be 8"x8"x3" angle
iron...er, wood.  It's cat-tight now but still leaks a lot of cold
around old windows and some cracks that I can't find or can't get at
with a foam can.  Those walls are pretty good insulation all by
themselves.  We rarely see -10F, this year being an exception.  If
we had long spells of -20F or -25F, I think I'd have to make some
improvements.

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer@tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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