slugster1011

I have brick ranch with a hip roof and a severe problem with ice damming and huge icicles. The ins. in the ceiling is installed wrong with vapor barrier toward the attic and it is only R-13 wall ins. I planned on flipping it over and adding a layer of R-30 unfaced. Would this be sufficient? I also have a chimmney for two wood burning fireplaces should I insulate that as well ? it seems the icicle problem gets worse when we use them alot, if so would I wrap it with a faced ins.? I've also added a ridge vent and planning on adding soffit vents all the way around. Thanks.Doug

inspectorD

The icicles for because of differences in temp. Which you may already know. All your attic ideas will work just fine. Just remember to leave the insulation a one inch space at the bottom roof deck for the ventilation to work when you install the soffit vents. They do make a material called prop a vent for this purpose. As for the chimney, I would wait to see what happens with the other improvements. You may not need it or it could change the dynamics altogether. I always do one thing at a time , and see how that works so I can narrow the problem down.
Good luck, now is the time to insulate before it gets hot up there.

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slugster1011

Sounds like a plan, thanks for the advice. Doug

mudmixer

The first and best ting to do is install decent soffit vents and then get rid of the old faced fiberglass and get rid of it espscially the fiberglass has ANY moisture in it.

After that, add a good amount of blown in cellulose and make sure the new insulation does not block (use the styroam chutes) the air flow from the new soffit vents to the ridge vents.

slugster1011

Blown in is more economical and definitly alot easier but is it better than fiberglass? I heard it settles, wouldn't it lose some of it's R value over time and also what about a vapor barrier do you not need one? I helped someone blow insulation in once and it seemed the stuff was made of ground up newspapers, phone books and who knows what else. Do they make different grades of material?

inspectorD

You can look up Nu-Wool :: Premium Cellulose Insulation :: Home Page for a company I have used. They explain things pretty good and yes you should have a vapor barrier facing the heated space.
Look at some of the other posts under insulation, plenty of good stuff and different ideas there also.

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