Can you teach an old house new tricks?

An Energy Star home doesn’t mean that it is new. Our latest project starts as a 60’s something townhouse in the Queen Village area of Philadelphia. The house is three stories with 8″ concrete block exterior walls that are not insulated, a flat roof that is rotting because there is no ventilation and parquet floors that really need be updated. We started with removing all the finishes including the out of style flooring, mildew laden roof insulation and warped drywall. But, stopping there and installing new finishes would only be ” Putting lipstick on a pig.” We needed to make the pig a thoroughbred so, we laid out a plan to retro-fit the structure and shot for an Energy Star Rated House.

Most new houses are built with 2 x 4 or 2 x 6 wood stud exterior walls which leaves a void to fill with insulation but, the void in a CMU (cementitiuos masonry units) block’s void is internal. So, to get the usual R-value you need to install 2 x 4 studs on the interior and lose interior volume. That didn’t sit well with our client who had already counted every inch for the custom kitchen and built-ins. Our solution, is to use 1 5/8″ metal studs installed at a minimum of 3/8″ from the existing CMU walls that will allow two inches of spray polyurethene foam insulation behind the drywall that will give us a R value of 13 on the walls and save 306 cubic feet of interior space. Not only do we save space but, with the 3/8″ gap behind the stud we a able to make the walls straighter with our laser levels and the closed cell spray insulation also acts as an air barrier. Combining the air tight insulated shell plan with high efficiency air conditioning, heating and appliances has set us on the road to a rehabbed house that will be 22% more efficient than houses built to local code requirements.

www.builditgreenphilly.com or write Scott at scott@builditgreenphilly.com

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