Which is the warm side?

[Minnie Bannister]

I am finishing off a room in our basement that had three uninsulated concrete walls. I have already completed the stud walls insulated with Kraft-faced glass-fiber insulation (facing to the inside).

My question concerns the wall between the room I am finishing and the furnace room/workshop. The room I am finishing has a heating/cooling vent at ceiling level (but there is no ceiling yet). The adjacent furnace room/workshop has no vents, although uninsulated ducting runs through it, so it gets a certain amount of heat simply by "leakage."

Should I insulate this wall? It has thin wood-grain paneling on both sides, but has no insulation -- I took the paneling off one side and looked. I plan to sheet-rock it.

If I do insulate it, which side should the facing be?

MB

[Curt]

"Minnie Bannister" wrote

What you're describing is an interior wall. Why use kraft faced insulation on this wall? Better yet, why insulate this wall at all since it's your furnace room?

[Minnie Bannister]

The insulation in that wall would be to keep the heat in the room I am now finishing and stop it leaking into the furnace room. I don't think the furnace room gets warm enough that it would help warm the adjacent room -- but I cannot be sure of that.

Is there a problem using Kraft-faced insulation rather than unfaced?

Similarly for the wall between the family room and the unheated laundry room. The latter has so much plumbing on the one exterior wall, and the electric panel on the other, that it would be much easier to insulate the wall between the two rooms than to insulate the laundry room.

MB

On 09/10/04 07:25 pm Curt put fingers to keyboard and launched the following message into cyberspace:

[Curt]

"Minnie Bannister" wrote

I believe you might create a problem here depending how cold one side gets compared to the warm room. You have a totally unheated laundry room? The only heat it gets is from an adjoining room? I would venture to guess this is where your water heater is also. Even if not, I think you would be asking for trouble with freezing pipes maybe?

Kraft faced is a vapor barrier, you may create a moisture problem using it on an interior wall. I've seen unfaced used as a noise reducer on interior walls (don't know how much it helps, probably could Google and find out)

I would be concerned about freezing pipes depending on your location. Maybe and maybe not, don't know extremes where you are. Sounds like a risky gamble not heating a room with water pipes.

[Minnie Bannister]

The water heater is next to the furnace. Is R-13 insulation between the family room and the laundry going to cut down the heat flow to the point where pipes will freeze? And there will still be heat flow through the suspended ceiling in the family room and between the joists into the laundry room, which has no ceiling. Also some heat from the kitchen above.

BTW, we're in W. Michigan, where it can get pretty cold in winter.

MB

On 09/10/04 09:55 pm Curt put fingers to keyboard and launched the following message into cyberspace:

[Curt]

Sorry, I couldn't tell you if it will cut down the heat flow to the point of pipes freezing. By you further explaining the design, it doesn't sound like it.

I was just in Michigan a couple months ago, in the Holland, Ludington, Honor & Travis City areas. Absolutely beautiful beaches & country, guess that's why we go back every year.

[Curt]

"Curt" blundered

Traverse City :o)

[rck]

Michigan in the summer is not Michigan in the winter. The year I lived there, all the Great Lakes froze over and the frost line went down over 4 feet. I lived east of Saginaw, the armpit of the Thumb.

Bob