Cost effective insulation for a 100 year old home?

Question

My home is in central Indiana -- climate zone 5. It has lasted 100 years with no insulation at all. I've removed all of the super thick and heavy 3/4" cement sheet rock on the exterior walls and found that the exterior cladding is all 1" pine boards, with a few patches and holes.

The house doesn't have any exterior wrap -- and right now it has vinyl siding over that 1" pine. I'm planning on leaving the vinyl siding on until I save enough $$ for hardi-plank, and at that time I'll add the house wrap and do a bunch of exterior sealing.

I've tallied up the exterior walls square footage and I've got ~1300 SQFT to insulate. I'm DIY.

I'm considering -

1. Spray 2" thick closed cell foam i.e froth-Paks, I would require about 2600 board feet of coverage. This would cost about $3000 for 4 froth pak 620s. This would give me ~R13, and 3.2 water vapor permeance.

2. Spray 1" thick closed cell insulation, then pack 3.5" fiberglass batts into the leftover 2.5". 1" spray foam is R6. The bats are 3.5" R11 packed to 2.5" is R9, which gives me total of R15. R11 is .22 a foot, which brings my cost down to $1700. This would give me 6.4 water vapor permeance.

3. glue 1" thick R4 EPS foam board insulation, leaving a 1/4" margin around edges, seal those edges with spray foam to create a vapor barrier. then pack R15. the EPS, R15 batts and several cans of spray foam would cost around $1500, total R Value would be 15.

My question is this -- I'm leaning towards option #2, but are there other options that might be more cost effective and still eliminate condensation on cold exterior wall, provide a comparable R value and water vapor permeance? I'm currently investigating using a sprayed or rolled on liquid waterproofing material, which would let me use full thickness R15 bats, but the products I've found so far would be more expensive than froth-paks. I'm also considering 6-10 mil plastic sheeting glued or taped to back of stud-bay, but I haven't figured out how to air seal the plastic to the sides of the stud bays.

Answer 1

I'd go with rock wool batt insulation in the stud bays.

Rock wool has several advantages over fiberglass. Better sound deadening ability. Better fire resistance. R-value unaffected by moisture. Low air permanence ( slows air down = slows heat loss ). Higher recycled content.

Tape and acoustic seal poly on the interior stud surface for your vapor/air barrier (climate zone 5 is vapor barrier on the warm side of the insulation). Once you've got your drywall up if you want better air sealing get aerobarrier to come in.

Spray foam insulation over time will crack so the air sealing ability is over-rated. The propellants for spray foam are not typically very environmentally friendly. While the foams are treated with a chemical to prevent fire spread they will burn when they burn they emit toxic fumes. The fire retardant chemicals are not non-toxic - avoid putting chemicals in your house if you can. Spray foam if improperly installed can be stuck in a non-cured state and continuously release volatile organic chemicals (VOCs).

I still use spray foam but I try to minimize where I use it.

Answer 2

Vapor barrier goes on the WARM side of the insulation. So plastic up against the boards and insulation on top is a bad idea.

If you've got the walls down to studs and sheathing, furring out the studs to give you more depth will make the most effect on insulation, at the cost of a little interior space. If you want to combine fiber batts and rigid foam, packing the cavities with fiberglass/rockwool (or cellulose, ) and sheathing over the studs with styrofoam (so there's no thermal break in the foam layer from the studs) followed by drywall will give you a significant upgrade.

Cellulose tends to be the most "bang for the buck" insulation-wise, but is not quite as good as some on a R-per-inch basis - however, it's very good with moisture management and reducing airflow.