Insulation of basement ceiling...

[spotty]

I've seen a couple of questions relating to this but not one that really answers my question.

I have a 105 year old house - stone foundations and basement which has a 5 1/5 ft - 6ft ceiling so really never going to be finished out.

The basement contains our furnace and a hot water heater and the rest is pretty well just used for storage. The floor above is simply hardwood floors - pretty old stuff which small gaps etc. that you can see down to the basement. The house seems to cool down very quickly when the heat goes off and the floor remains fairly cool to the touch making the downstairs rather unappealing in the winter.

I suspect insulating the ceiling in the basement will help slow down the loss of heat in the room a bit - the basement is closed off to the direct outside - no open vents or anything like that.

If I want to use fibreglass insulation on the ceiling between the joist s - do I really need to put a vapor barrier in and if I do I do not want to have fibreglass exposed.

I suppose what I'm saying is if I get faced fibreglass batts and put them in so paper side is out rather than against the floor - it will conceal the fibreglass. But it would mean that the paper which I think is a vapor barrier is on the wrong side.

As the furnace is down there it provides a degree of residual heat -and have not noticed condensation forming down there last winter. Is this a good idea ?

[Bag Boy]

Generally, the vapor barrier goes towards the "warm" part of the house, which would be the 1st floor and not the basement.

[newsgroups01REMOVEME]

vapor barrier should face the warm part in the summer time. This being your living space, not the basement.

hth,

tom @

[Joseph Meehan]

As noted the barrier goes toward the warm side. Putting it the wrong way will trap moisture where you don't want it.

I will suggest that while it should no do any harm, I doubt if the insulation is going to do much good. You would be likely to be better served by adding it in the attic or sealing up doors and windows. Very little heat is going down into the basement. The basement is partly heated by the waste heat from the water heater and furnace.

[Art]

Vapor barrier goes up to warm side. Don't worry about pieces of exposed fiberglass falling down into your basement. Doesn't happen.

[SteveC1280]

According to Owens Corning, you insulate the floor (basement ceiling) with unfaced, no-vapor barrier fiberglass.

Remove the 'remove' in my address to e:mail me.

[spotty]

It does if you head bumps into it - with 5 1/2 to 6 ft ceiling - this is highly likely as I already have to bend slightly to avoid hitting my head on the joists.

With regard the paper being a combustable etc. the fact that its wooden floorboard and joist about - are these not combustable as well. I'm just looking at trying to find reasons why putting bats in reverse and stapling the paper up to the joists would be a bad move.....

Art wrote:

quickly

[spotty]

It does if you head bumps into it - with 5 1/2 to 6 ft ceiling - this is highly likely as I already have to bend slightly to avoid hitting my head on the joists.

With regard the paper being a combustable etc. the fact that its wooden floorboard and joist about - are these not combustable as well. I'm just looking at trying to find reasons why putting bats in reverse and stapling the paper up to the joists would be a bad move.....

Art wrote:

quickly

[willshak]

On 12/17/2004 2:21 PM US(ET), spotty took fingers to keys, and typed the =

following:

Yes, but one is more combustible than the other. Hold a lit match up to=20 a joist, and drop another on a pile of shredded paper. Guess which=20 material would burn more easily (other than the fingers holding the match= ).

I've had my basement ceiling bats stapled up with the barrier facing=20 down for 20 years. My basement is finished though, and the boiler and water heater are down =

there. My basement temperature runs between 65=BA (winter) and 75=BA (summer)=20 without any additional heat other than the ambient heat from the boiler=20 and water heater, so which side is the warm side?