Posted By Bob I on 01 Dec 2016 07:36 PM
I wrote a long entry, but deleted it. You give PHIUS - a great organization, started by a great visionary, a bad name. Shame on you.

Where is your model of this home you gave advise on? I should report you, shame on you!! I think I will you are giving them a bad name. Are you a certified builder or designer, be more specific, big difference. Your website has no WUFI models??? I figured I get you all fired up. Quantify & Qualify this, stop putting your name behind bad non WUFI modeling or I will report you by pointing to this thread for one. "Certified Passive House Consultant" Just because you took some short crash course does not make you a degreed design engineer or "national consultant"

My back is sore. Whatever drugs this guy is doing I want some. Sounds like someone is going to be reported to the principal.

Well the truth of the matter is if your local PEs and Architects don't succeed you don't. You have no green market without them to speak of. Take that to the bank if you are not too high to understand it. Smoke that drug, I'm done here! IQ level dropped to low for me to continue.

Mr Para: My remarks were ill conceived and made in haste. I apologize. You are obviously an expert in some of the murkier areas of building science, and could be very helpful in bringing some understanding to the readers at this site. Most of the people posting questions are DIY; some with very little idea of building science and some we versed, but probably not in the details you know about. Maybe you could suggest practical ways that would help on their project. And demonstrate why understanding and using PHIUS principles is beneficial to them.

So, does the OP know how to insulate his house?

Maybe hire a PE and architect, run some WUFI sims, more modeling, some thermodynamic simulations, more consulting, get some IAQ analysis done. Almost sounds like a municipal job.

Funny thing is, some of the things some very smart people tell you never to do, actually dont turn nasty (poly in basement over fiberglass for example) and encouraged practices (dense pack cellulose, spray foam) can turn nasty quick. Ive seen both more than I can count from cutting open many walls, and obviously it isnt that black and white. Its all in the implementation more so than the design in my opinion,

The future of building isnt the parahomes nerds, its the common sense skilled labor shortage that is the real problem.

You would probably want to put something in those walls. Air is an insulator, but it only has an R value of about 3 per inch. Your house probably has more than 150 air exchanges or more per day. Gotta love balloon framing. I don't think its worth spending tens of thousands of dollars on insulation if youre not planning on living there the rest of your life. Blow cellulose in the walls and be done.

Jason, after all is said and done, go with Dana's recommendations. The only thing I would do is use blown fiber glass instead of cellulose. If it's installed anywhere near density there will be no settling, much harder to over blow. Not so cellulose. You lose a little in efficiency ,but long term a better product. Install your membrane and dry wall and it becomes a standard exterior insulation job with the stud bays filled with a 1" tube from outside.

Smartwall: In most cases 1.8lb fiberglass in walls will be slightly higher efficiency than cellulose, but also usually higher in price (which varies), and not always "worth" the up-charge given how small the thermal performance delta really is. The cellulose can sometimes buy a hint of moisture resilience, but not in every case. I'm not a zealot on either for Jason123's case- I'm more interested in hearing about how well bulk water issues are managed.

Jason123 is not building a "... Passive or highly insulated building...", nor is he contemplating building one. He wants to know how risky it is to insulate his balloon framed, plank sheathed, vinyl sided antique in US climate zone 6A. This is not an exotic stackup requiring much analysis, and certaiinly does not require a WUFI simulation or engineering.

There are far too many users & promoters of WUFI who don't have the skills or experience to know when it's lying to them. Building stackup design is a practicum, informed by the historical performance of different methods. I'm in the same camp with Lstiburek, who points out that if you actually NEED a WUFI simulation to know whether it works or not, you are probably designing too close to the line.

There are more than 50 years of experience in retrofit insulating buildings such as Jason123s, and the pitfalls are well known, with 10s of thousands of existence proofs of what does and does not work when retrofitting balloon framed antiques in zone 6A.

The vented cladding offers some resilience (and this is reflected in IRC prescriptives, by climate zone.) Vented cladding alone is not sufficient in zone 6A, but by making the interior air tight, packing the cavities to a convection-resistant density, and using a class-II vapor retarder (per IRC prescriptives) it still works. Using a variable permeance membrane type vapor retarder rather than a more fixed permeance material such as vapor barrier latex gives it yet another degree of resilience, since it allows the assembly a drying rate toward the interior much faster than moisture can accumulate in winter.

There are more than 50 years of experience in retrofit insulating buildings such as Jason123s, and the pitfalls are well known.

But none of the above protects well enough against chronic bulk water incursions. The real question is still whether the bulk water management details are adequately taken care of, and that would be where the real risk lies.

Frank, Smartwall, Dana,
Thanks for bringing this and other threads back to the original topic and giving meaningful answers. With PARAHOMES ruining any possible real assistance he might be able to offer with his rude and denigrating approach I actually stopped checking in to the forum.
I'm building my own ICF home with radiant polished concrete floors, and you guys and others have been invaluable. Both when I ask a question, and from being able to keep tabs on other threads. Let's hope that those with nothing to offer stay quiet and thanks to you guys for sticking it out.
Scott

I just read the first three posts, I guess I was more interested in poking the dumb bear, but I actually owned a ballooned framed farmhouse in zone 6 for quite some time and I'll tell you what I did.

Btw, I'm a contractor, had an insulation business when I owned this house so I was always firing up the blower door, puffing smokesticks and using the thermal camera on it.

When I bought it, it had no insulation. Clap, 3/4 plank, full 2x4, 3/4 plank then lath and plaster. I insulated the walls with cellulose through the plaster then we overlayed 3/8 drywall over the plaster and finished it. Put 1/4 fanfold over the clap, vinyl siding and replaced all the windows with inserts. Never had moisture issues other than some ice damming in some dormers which would dry out. Still was drafty, but much easier to heat.

I replaced the furnace with high efficiency gas and spray foamed the box sills, that had a dramatic effect on my heat bills and made a huge dent in my blower door number.

Then later on, from the outside, I drilled into the sill box into every bay and dense packed onion bags, I also did a thermal scan and repacked areas I missed the first time (prior to owning the blower door and camera, amazing some of the odd framing you find) This does/did a reasonable job of eliminating the balloon and also had a big impact on my blower door number.

Later, I did some interior remodeling involving gutting some interior wall in an area that if I did wrong, should have shown me problems, 2nd floor bath, north side, dormer, and all was well and dry.

No fancy simulations, no expensive vapor barriers, regular paint no air sealed drywall, no thick exterior foam. Guess what? The house is still standing, new owners have had zero problems and it's going on 14 years since I changed its original 100 years of existence and it's just fine,

Good luck with it, you aren't necessarily fixing it, you're just improving it.

Dana has been an inspiration to me over the past few years and one the few reasons I still come back to this site.


Thank you for your inestimable contributions.


Merry Christmas

Dana, my cost for OC insulation is better for their Pro Pink product than celly since my local Green Fiber plant closed.

MTicf, I also did a radiant polished concrete floor (technically in Zone 5 but more like 4). I can say i learned a lot and am happy to share with you. I'm overall pleased with the floor but understand that in a tight, highly insulated house (and ICF's qualify) you will not get "warm toasty" floors. The heat load is simply too low to require your "radiator" to get warm to the touch. This is not necessarily bad but sometimes the expectation is being able to walk barefoot across a warm floor. Careful planning is key, provide openings in the floor for all your utilities, wiring, central vac, plumbing, ducts everything! lay it all out as there is no cutting and patching and if you drill and hit tubing you're screwed. I had plenty of sleeves etc and did not have to cut or patch but with all those openings I did not provide enough control joints (I was afraid of hitting tubing in cutting the joints) I should have done more. Where I did cut joints I laid them out pre-pour then put a 6" long piece of pipe insulation on every tube that crossed the joint and made sure they were fastened low in the slab I mapped them out then when I cut after the pour I made multiple passes and felt for the insulation after each pass. I poured my floor with white cement and then broadcast glass, local beach pebbles and oyster shell into the surface. Some areas came out just as I wanted - others not so much (pouring in February didn't help - wouldn't recommend it). If you plan to broadcast aggregate throw out about 3 times more than you think you need. All in all, great floor - but I'd do a few things differently next time.

Birdman, Thanks for the tips and encouragement. I installed what I thought were plenty of blockouts, but I kept adding them for different things(like adding them to facilitate low voltage wiring for cabinet toe-kick LEDs) and so I went back and added double what I thought I might need, and I added them in more places so that I wouldn't have to use a ridiculous length of wire to reach certain spots. Hopefully, I don't get stuck anywhere.
I will be cutting the slab on ~4' squares. I have 2" of concrete above the PEX, and my concrete guy suggested I fill the system with water before I pressurize it so that it doesn't have a tendency to float up in the slab. It is also tied down to the #6 rebar in the bottom of the joist pockets. I share your fear, but we will go ahead and cut it to plan. Fingers crossed!
My finish will be stained in a mottled gold/brown and polished to look like marble. The aggregate will be pushed down while troweling so that we are hopefully polishing just the cream.
The floor is formed by Quaddeck and will span 24', so we have shut down until spring since keeping it warm enough to cure adequately is relatively expensive. Then, I hope the best laid plans work out as planned. Thanks again.
Sorry for the thread hike.

Posted By greentree on 02 Dec 2016 09:17 PM
I just read the first three posts, I guess I was more interested in poking the dumb bear, but I actually owned a ballooned framed farmhouse in zone 6 for quite some time and I'll tell you what I did.

Btw, I'm a contractor, had an insulation business when I owned this house so I was always firing up the blower door, puffing smokesticks and using the thermal camera on it.

When I bought it, it had no insulation. Clap, 3/4 plank, full 2x4, 3/4 plank then lath and plaster. I insulated the walls with cellulose through the plaster then we overlayed 3/8 drywall over the plaster and finished it. Put 1/4 fanfold over the clap, vinyl siding and replaced all the windows with inserts. Never had moisture issues other than some ice damming in some dormers which would dry out. Still was drafty, but much easier to heat.

I replaced the furnace with high efficiency gas and spray foamed the box sills, that had a dramatic effect on my heat bills and made a huge dent in my blower door number.

Then later on, from the outside, I drilled into the sill box into every bay and dense packed onion bags, I also did a thermal scan and repacked areas I missed the first time (prior to owning the blower door and camera, amazing some of the odd framing you find) This does/did a reasonable job of eliminating the balloon and also had a big impact on my blower door number.

Later, I did some interior remodeling involving gutting some interior wall in an area that if I did wrong, should have shown me problems, 2nd floor bath, north side, dormer, and all was well and dry.

No fancy simulations, no expensive vapor barriers, regular paint no air sealed drywall, no thick exterior foam. Guess what? The house is still standing, new owners have had zero problems and it's going on 14 years since I changed its original 100 years of existence and it's just fine,

Good luck with it, you aren't necessarily fixing it, you're just improving it.

Not that you need MY opinion on it, but I think that should work, and go the distance. :-) The additional capillary break of the fan-fold as a weather resistant barrier over the clapboard plus the back ventilated vinyl siding means exterior moisture drives are minimized, and the interior moisture drives can still dry toward the exterior.

If some future idiot decides to actively humidify to 50% RH or higher it could become an issue, but the again, so would most houses built to minimal IRC prescriptives.

DANA1: "There are far too many users & promoters of WUFI who don't have the skills or experience to know when it's lying to them. Building stackup design is a practicum, informed by the historical performance of different methods. I'm in the same camp with Lstiburek, who points out that if you actually NEED a WUFI simulation to know whether it works or not, you are probably designing too close to the line. "

Lets correct this DANA1 statement: "There are far too many people on the internet giving unfounded static advice labled as self-proclaimed "advisers" or "building scientist" that are not using the proper tools. In any product industry, ("stack-up? that is not what a whole holistic building design only consist of) many, especially those that have boundaries to weather, fluid dynamic modeling is the norm proven by empirical data in the software vs some here say off the internet...too many DIYs, designers, etc, don't have the skills or experience to know when they are being lied too since often advice is driven by the sales of some product. If you are a real design engineer, you were taught in school principles that apply to a dynamic designs via basic chemistry and physics cannot be neglected, you need the proper tools and that is not a forum discussion or blog. WUFI is excellent, it should be left to pros but it is not rocket science....the result of not doing so I read all over the internet can cost health and sick building issues, especially as was suggest above to air seal and some of the products that do not have the history DANA1 eludes to (zip, foams, plastics, synthetics, galvanic matting, etc) may not mate well together or that assemble(stack-up?) may cause excessive amounts a moisture mold the OP is concerned about and should be, its a function of it's level and classified by moisture that WUFI identifies, not the spores themselves.

Joe is all over that map as are most of these so called "design experts" I struggle finding proven designs of in my region, let alone nation. He completely supports WUFI despite what DANA 1 said here: https://buildingscience.com/documents/building-science-insights/bsi-089-wufi%E2%80%94barking-wrong-tree ASHREA 160 has been developed for US along with a slew of material properties you just can't guess at used making it very accurate, much better than costly guessing.

It supports the air flows, determines the correct cladding gaps CFMS (flows) reference above it is not something you just guess at, vapor management placements, and much more. You don't have to design passive house or meet the 5 criteria before hygrothermal analysis for it, plus version is for any non-passive design, retrofit. My guess Dana1 you have never used the software enough to be commenting either way. You prefer people use DANA1 advise and buy site sponsored products that you support may not work unless designed by the proper person with the proper tools. Again, WUFI, Joe, PHIUS, will all agree.

I have no problem with folks who use WUFI who understand it's limitations, and are willing to investigate the whys of when empirical data differ.

"But it worked in simulation" is not an excuse in the real world.

Posted By Dana1 on 06 Dec 2016 01:25 PM
I have no problem with folks who use WUFI who understand it's limitations, and are willing to investigate the whys of when empirical data differ.

"But it worked in simulation" is not an excuse in the real world.

The more I read your post the more it becomes obvious to me you have no design experience, especially using CFD.... The better softwares like WUFI, Flowmaster, etc, ARE backed by in WUFIs case two German decades of "real world" builds, you, I, most, other internet "advisors" don't have captured across the nation more less globe. Germany primarily uses brick mass, smart bricks, much different animal. As the doc said, we use layers with complex air flows, moist convective dynamic loops with major impacts of static properties, one cannot even begin to pretend to guess for most situations. Anyone's guess is as good as anyone's. Now thanks to NREL, Ashrae, and a few other material property labs, we have the properties and the tools I hope you are wise enough to know are not sitting in some GBA or internet database or cloud for easy access as you suggested.. Back in the old days, we use to collect info and calculations put them in a book that rarely was shared. Today that data is in software. So the basic design development processes for software like this is, 1. Software Development(writing) 2. Lab or bench(hot box, fatigue life, etc) test to develop material and mechanical properties. 3. Design modeling (architectural, CFD, finite element) 4. Prototype field testing(usually 1-3 test articles) per major climate zone sold at a discount or retro-fitted at production config. 5. Back calibrate #3 6. Build lean production article #2-3 & on 7. Sustain final configuration 8. Back calibrate #3 as required. In the case of WUFI Germany this design process took over two decades. In the US we are off to a good start.

So which one is it now DANA1 yor're with Joe or against him or whomever is sponsoring him at the time or you just are not sure like alot of your advice??

If you need to run a WUFI simulation to figure out whether & how retrofit insulating a balloon framed vinyl clad antique is a problem, you spend WAY too much time playing the the simulation tools rather than working in the real world.

BTW: Try using a different browser- a bit of white space makes it look like you're at least taking a breath. :-)