Thursday, September 23, 2010

Basement wall- method to the madness

Here's a view of the exterior concrete basement wall. I'm trying to keep the poly vapour barrier completely continuous and tight from the basement right to the roof.

It shows the concrete, with 2 layers of 2" expanded polystyrene and a stud wall sandwiching it together, with the joists resting on top.

The polyethylene squeezes between the joist and insulation and will be sealed to the poly on the wall above.

There are already a number of little holes in the poly that will need to be sealed. Lots of work to do!

4 comments:

  1. So cool watching this process Shafraaz. What a great idea this was to blog it and, from both Doug and I you are very welcome for the use of the truck.

    Did you get the windows as well? Can't wait to see what you do with those.

    Looks like alot of doors. Great that you were able to salvage them - they look too good to have been lost to a scrape pile somewhere. So - how will you seal the holes in the in poly?

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  2. We were not able to salvage windows from that old house- but I did get 30 odd panels of windows from another project that I'm thinking of making into a fence!

    and to answer the question about sealing holes in poly- we'll use tuck tape, acoustic sealant and more small squares of poly... lot's of little things to do.

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  3. Making good progress Shafraaz. I had been wondering why you were insulating the basement so soon in the process, but I take it that the main floor is carried by the basement wall framing, which is sitting on the foundation footings. Is that correct? Nice way of doing the vapour barrier, but good luck trying to keep that poly from getting ripped. As long as you have a wide enough strip to seal to the poly on the next level. The acoustic sealant may fill small holes.

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  4. Yes, you are right. The main floor joists are sitting on the basement wood stud wall. And yes, it's gonna' be a challenge to keep the vapour barrier from getting beat up, but I am hoping to have very diligent framers.

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