Insulating Exterior of Brick House

We live in a detached double brick house (built in 1912) which has an attached garage and a wooden addition at the back which has a bathroom on the ground floor and a laundry room on the second. This addition has been a source of problems for some time. In the winter there was a noticeable draft on exterior wall near the bath. And there was water damage in the basement, which we had 'repaired' last year. Removing the drywall uncovered evidence of termite damage. I had some wood replaced with Blu Wood which is treated to prevent insect damage.

Earlier this year, we discovered that due to water damage, the second floor of this addition had been invaded by carpenter ants (as well as termites.)

Click here for more details of the insect damage.

This required extensive repairs so we decided to take advantage of this to insulate the exterior of one brick wall as well as the three exterior walls of the addition. Danny Harvey (an expert in energy efficiency) suggested that we should insist on at least R20 insulation. Robert Valitutti of PCL Interior & Exterior Finishes was willing to do this and we spent some time negotiating the details. For background take a look at my blog.

Here are some photos of the removal of the siding on the addition as well as installation of  strapping, insulation and siding on both the addition and the main house.

Damage to addition frame

Adding siding to brick wall and repairing frame and adding siding to addition

The result of this work is that we were able to add about 8 ins of insulation to the brick wall (R 29) and increase the insulation on the addition from 4 ins to about 12 ins. The insulation in the addition in the addition ceiling was increased from 4 ins to 6 ins (we added some strapping to add 2 ins.)

After this work was completed the flat roof on the second floor was rebuilt. The entire deck was removed, and 6 ins of insulation added on top of the original blown in insulation (about 4 ins) before adding a new sloped roof.