If they are still light and fluffy they are still insulating your home although not the best of insulating materials.
Sawdust insulation in attic old.
Seaweed in the maritimes and sawdust in the rest of canada were common insulation materials in the old days.
To improve the comfort of the home pictured above one solution is to remove the wood chip insulation and re insulate the entire attic cavity with blown in fibreglass insulation.
My house has an original old part and a new addition.
Commercial extruded polystyrene sheets and fiberglass insulation are expensive especially in the quantities required in solar passive homes hence the importance of local replacement materials.
In order to increase energy efficiency i would like to re insulate the attick.
Before you install insulation over the sawdust check the attic for old knob and tube wiring commonly installed from the late 1800s until the late 1950s.
1 what is the best bang for my buck ie vs r value 2 should i take out the sawdust before putting new insulation in.
If your home is old enough 19th century your attic insulation that looks like sawdust could be sawdust.
That is why we often just add new insulation right over the top of these old ones in an attic it is just not worth the mess of cleaning the old stuff out.
Vermiculite and perlite are older granulated insulations with relatively low r values which describes the product s thermal resistance.
Affix rigid foam insulation to the attic side of the hatch or door.
Knob and tube wiring is made of two individual wires that run through and are connected to porcelain insulators.
All about wood chip insulation october 27 2014 1 01 am.
I have warm attic in old part and cold attic in addition so i have both of those setups.
Shredded newspaper or loose fill cellulose was another common insulation in the past.
I have two questions.
Attic insulation looks like sawdust.
I have an old house with an attic that is insulated with saw dust.
Attic hatch or door.
In the original house insulation fiber is covered with hardboard so you don t breathe that fiber when you are in the attic.
Faced insulation should not be placed on top of existing insulation in the attic.
Pull down stair or ladder.
This page contains a list of research papers on the use of sawdust as an insulation material.
Newspapers sawdust catalogs and just about any cheap or free cellulose have all been used to provide minimal insulation in old homes.
Does the job and easy to do.
Add weatherstripping around the perimeter and a sweep to the door of a walk up attic.