Right before the winter I moved into a 100 year old house and my heating bills have put me into a state of shock. I'm thinking that insulating may be a good option. Due to a baby and the possibility of lead paint, I hesitate to poke holes in the walls, so for now am just thinking about doing the attic. First of all, would that be a complete waste to just do the attic without doing the walls too?
Secondly, our attic is set up so that half of it is a bedroom with wall-to-wall carpet, then you walk through a door to the other half which is storage and looks like a typical attic. I think insulating the storage half won't be so hard (except for some knob-and-tube wiring), but not sure about doing around the bedroom. I have access above some of the bedroom ceiling via the storage area, but then about 1/2 of the bedroom ceiling slopes down as the roof is directly above it. Making things even more difficult, there are two chambers on the sloping side of the bedroom, to make vertical walls instead of just following the slope of the roof. I could have access to one of these chambers if I move the fuse box out of the way and crawl through a cubby hole, but the other chamber is completely sealed off. I'm not sure how to tackle this. I guess my only options are to poke through the ceiling & chamber to insulate them? Is it even worthwhile to do this if these areas are air-tight to begin with?
Also thinking about replacing our relic oil burner, but that's a discussion for another day...
Thanks, Nate