Insulating brick wall

The lower 2/3 of my house is brick vaner. It is uninsulated and unwraped. I am considering two possibilities.

  1. Use electric chisil and remove top and bottom bricks from each cavity and blow in fiberglass. And replace with a contrasting brick.

  1. Remove inside drywall (I can do drywall finishing) and put in vaporgard and then using metal stays install R-13 fiberglass and re sheet rock. I plan on doing complete re painting at the same time as either procedure.

What would be the most cost effective in the long run?

Louis

Reply to
stan100
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How is the upper half of the wall insulated?

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

#2 is the correct way, but the vapor barrier goes to the inside. Unless you need to re-rock anyway, you can also inject foam in each stud cavity from the inside, and just patch those holes.

I think you are mistaken about #1- if it is brick veneer, there is SOMETHING (probably celotex, plywood, or plank) between the brick and the studs. You DON'T want to fill up the space between the brick and the sheathing- brick is not waterproof, and the water in that space needs to be able to drain. Look at bottom course of brick- there should be weep holes, usually in the vertical mortar joints, every few feet. And while house may not have a modern vapor barrier, I'll bet there is 15 pound felt betwen the brick ties and the sheathing, which does make a pretty good water block, unless it is torn or rotted. Again, you don't want to puncture that barrier to get into the stud spaces. (Blowing insulation through masonary wall CAN be done, but it is a real PITA to do right. Almost always cheaper/easier to go through interior walls and patch them.)

I'd open 1 stud cavity from inside (like inside a closet that butts up to outside wall), and find out what is REALLY going on, before I made expensive decisions. If you can followup with what year house was built, and what part of country, the folks on here can make a pretty educated guess as to what the wall construction details are.

aem sends...

Reply to
ameijers

The cavity behind the brick is only 1" max, and should be left vacant, while the wall cavity is 3.5", allowing for more insulation. You could drill 2" holes and blow in loose fill, rather than take down the sheetrock.

pb

Reply to
Paul Batchie

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