My wife and I have been weighing the pros and cons of residing our house eventually. We'd like a little input from those who know more about the housing market than we do.
The house in question is a 170 year old timber frame farmhouse in upstate NY. It has up to 8" (the beams and framing) walls in much of the house, though 1 section was added on and has 1940's vintage single story 2x4 construction on the north wall where the rooms were added on to. Some of the house has 2" plank outside the framing, and clapboard over that. Part of the house has clapboard without the plank underneath. The house is 1000 sq. ft on the 1st floor with 400 sq ft of second floor, over the oldest section of the house. The upstairs there has short side walls and sloping ceilings with rough cut 2 x 6 rafters and cellulose blown in above the ceiling. There was a little more added to the center of the room during a remodel job I did (R19 fiberglass over the cellulose where I could fit it in). The rest of the single story part, has roughly R40 cellulose over most of it...about as much as we could put in, considering the limitations of the crawl spaces above. All walls have blown in urea formaldehyde foam installed in the late 70's. Any rooms I had to gut, showed the foam install to be pretty thorough. Where I had to disturb it much, I added to or replaced with unfaced fiberglass as necessary. Those rooms (mainly upstairs) have a polyethylene vapor barrier (that I put up in the early 80's before we heard that was not the thing to do) under the sheetrock. The living room, downstairs, got the same treatment, and the kitchen has a 2 x 6 outside wall with R19 fiberglass and kraft paper backing in it due to a remodel in the 90's. I air sealed the rim joists last year. All windows have been replaced (Marvin wood windows) over the last 30 years.
Heating system is a 3 ton GSHP, and our heating costs (if you consider the increase in our electricity usage over our previous average) are around $300-$400 yearly.
So that's details on the house...basically an old leaky house that has been upgraded, insulated, and air sealed, to the best of the owners' abilities, over the years, without going to extremes. And it's pretty cheap to heat and cool these days.
The current siding (over everything else) is asbestos shingle. We are about 10 years away from retirement and are wondering.
- What is the general thinking on asbestos shingle these days? If we eventually decide to move and sell, will it be an issue? It's pretty indestructible stuff, seems to dry well to the outside, and I've painted it several times. It IS ugly, though. From a resale value, would we be better off residing with vinyl? Would we ever get the cost back considering the cost of removal of the asbestos shingle siding? Current siding is in good shape, BTW.
- If we do reside, how much foam (and what type) would make the most sense under the siding?
I know vinyl isn't exactly the green thing to do. However, there must be some combination and price point with siding and outside insulation that makes sense for a house that's already pretty cheap to heat. My gut feeling is to leave it the way it is, but at some point, I'm probably going to get sick of painting it, and/or we might want to sell and move.
Ideas??
Thanks in advance.