Insulating plaster walls with ornate mouldings

[T]

Hi there,

I have a 50 year old stucco/block wall house that is undergone various degrees of upgrade in Ontario, Canada.

Many of the exterior walls are plaster will very nice, ornate plaster mouldings. Having just redone the kitchen, it's clear that not only is there little in the way of insulation, but the framing is 1x2 against the cement. So we have stucco on the outside, then a block wall, which appears to be cemented smooth on the interior.

We are also in the process of removing a baseboard hot water heating system. Once this is complete, the plaster walls will need to be repaired, and new baseboard trim added.

The question becomes, what is the best approach to repairing the walls and insulating, while preserving the plaster mouldings?

1. Rip down plaster. Screw the mouldings. Re-frame, insulate, drywall.
2. Rip down a few feet of plaster. Insulate behind. Drywall.
3. Just fix the area where the baseboard was - #2 isn't going to help enough to make a difference.
4. Leave a few feet of wall at the top, re-frame, insulate and drywall the lower 90%. Join the walls by....

Thanks! trevors1234 no spam hotmail.com

[Speedy Jim]

disclaimer: I'm no insulation expert. In Ontario, I assume you need a *lot* of insulation R-value for it to be effective.

You won't get much behind the plaster in only a 1" (3/4") space.

If you re-frame the walls to move them out, it creates a lot of headaches around windows and doors.

There has been a huge amount of work done in the last 20 yrs on insulating the block (both before and after installation), some good, some bad. Do this search and read up:

For some comparisons of wall-space insulations: Keep an eye out for discussions of moisture problems in any of these systems.

Jim

[j j]

we have a 50 year old house in quebec. it's the same thing except it's a "brick" house, so we have brick, then about 4 inches of solid wood (big wood blocks) then we had plaster on top of a 1x2" wood frame. the space in the ceiling was also empty. I also had mouldings.

I chose the "screw the mouldings" approach, ripped the plaster off the exterior walls and ceiling, put a 2x3" wood frame on top of the old wood and I will add R12 (3.5" thick) fiberglass in the space.