vented cathedral with batts in climate zone 3
Last Post 18 Mar 2012 11:39 PM by jonr. 2 Replies.
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HuxleyUser is Offline
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12 Mar 2012 08:18 PM
Am in the progress of renovating my 1960 ranch house here in Atlanta Ga. One of the items I'm working on is to open up my ceiling to a cathedral ceiling. I decided to go with a vented assembly and most likely to use R38C or R30C fiberglass batts. The original rafters are 2x6 which don't allow for a whole lot so I furred them out with 6" metal studs so save on weight. Overall I'm having 11.5" from decking to get my assembly of choice installed.
I decided to not penetrate the ceiling plane with lights, hvac and rather try to get a airtight drywall plane with latex paint on it. as far as the batts I want to go with the unfaced ones, and might add 1/2"xps for thermal bridging and airsealing/ vapor barrier between fiberglass and drywall. If I decide to not do this (depending on overall R value), should I run a 6mil poly or Tyvek? I believe I'm better off not to, I don't want to trap any moisture inside the fiberglass. Wed do have humid summers and semi cold winters where we heat, so the dew point inside the insulation will vary from outside to inside.
My biggest question is what do i use for the vent baffles. My original idea was insect screen to allow humidity to escape but I got advised to use airtight product to avoid wind washing. I do have soffit and ridge vent in place. and was considering a 1.25" airspace. I know 2" would be better but this would leave me room for the R38C insulation. I don't want to create condensation plane at the baffles which would trap moisture inside the fiberglass batts so I don't think I go with the off the shelf baffles. I believe I will have the same issue with DIY baffles out of XPS. I would need to go with R30C and the XPS to stay within the 11.5".
So my newest thought is to use Tyvek or a perforated radiant barrier for the venting chutes, any thoughts? Any small roof leaks would be able to drip down the plane and not go into the fiberglass, it would be airtight and windwashing would be reduced and moisture could still travel through, but would this be enough to dry out the fiberglass if condensation will take place? Any pointers? Guess I rather have a max of 10% performance loss during extreme wind washing than having trapped moisture. This house will never be fully airtight as you can do in new construction so moist air will find its way into the insulation.

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16 Mar 2012 04:12 PM
If you detail both the foam and the wall board as an air barrier (acoustic sealant &/or duct mastic on the seams, 1-part foam on the edges) you don't gain anything with interior Tyvek.  In zone 3 a layer of 6 mil poly on the interior of the wall would be a mistake, especially if there is brick/stone/stucco siding.  The vapor-retardency of half-inch XPS is under 2 perms which still allows the wall cavity to dry toward the interior, but won't load up the sheathing quickly from interior moisture drives in winter.  It's about rigth as-is. If you put poly in there it must dry toward the exterior, and in summer that just isn't happening much when the dew points are north of 70F, and you can end up with condensation on the poly inside the wall cavity sometimes in an air-conditioned house.  With half-inch XPS the air conditioning continues to dry the wall assembly during those steamy hot periods, so the moisture is less likely to get ahead of the drying rate in summer.

Tyvek Attic Wrap has an integrated RB, which may be worthwhile in your rafter application if you go that route.  Even high-density cathedral-ceiling batts are partially translucent to infra-red, and having a reflective layer on the exterior improves it's cooling season performance.

An alternative would be to dense-pack the rafters full depth with cellulose, and use only latex paint as an interior vapor retarder.  This works in Atlanta as long as you're not running a humidifier and keeping it at 40% or higher in winter, but but not in cooler climates.  See the table 3 on p.12 of this document

If you're leery of that, consider doing a 1" flash-spray of closed cell foam first (it doesn't have to be pretty or perfect, just full coverage on the roof deck), then dense-packing it or install full-depth high density batts, even if you have to compress them a bit.  The flash of closed cell foam forms a non-wicking condensing surface in winter, that also is a ~2 perm vapor retarder. Even when the roof deck is below the dew point of the interior air it's rate of moisture accumulation thorugh the foam is pretty slow. But when spring comes, the high vapor-pressure of the sun-heated roof deck dries the roof deck through the foam into the (moisture tolerant) cellulose, which stays pretty much at room-humidity as long as you don't put poly or foil  or vinyl on the inside, only latex paint.  In summer the air-conditioning dries it out further, and the foam limits the rate at which sun-baked roofing after a rain can drive moisture into the cavity, and condensation on the gypsum is avoided.

The flash-foam will also be more air-tight than is readily achievable by a retrofit of interior Tyvek, if you be sure to spray it down over the soffits and onto the top plates of the framing too. Overall the cost of flash foam may even be cheaper than the material + labor for doing the Tyvek chute process meticulously too. Figure on about a $100/roofing square, or a buck a square foot.  Then you can use either blown cellulose (recommended) or unfaced high-density batts to fill up the rest of the cavity, with only standard latex paint as an interior vapor retarder. 

With ~ R6 of closed cell foam to the exterior of the fiber in an 11.5" cavity, (10.5" of cellulose or fiberglass) you'll have R38 in fiber, R6 in foam for R44 center-cavity, and  the number of condensing-hours per winter at the foam/fiber interface will be much fewer than in the dense pack/roof-deck case.  At 70F/35% RH the dew point is about 40F. The foam/fiber interface is at the  ~86% point of the delta between room temp and exterior temp, so to hit 40F at interior surface of the foam it has to be below 35F outside, and it's only an issue if the AVERAGE temp stays that cold over several weeks to have problems in the fiber insulation.  The mean January temp in Atlanta is about 40F, so the mean January temp at the flash-foam/fiber would be 44F, so you'll have PLENTY of margin with that approach.
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18 Mar 2012 11:39 PM
Meyer,

I agree with your thoughts about having a Tyvek separated, vented air space under the roof decking. Tyvek will not trap moisture.
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