Improving Energy Efficiency in a Historic Building, Insulating the Attic and Cathedral Ceiling

Dr. Energy Saver has installed the appropriate insulation to help restore and improve this historic building's energy efficiency.The Cobb's Mill Inn building, in Weston, CT is one of the oldest structures in the U.S. and was built before the revolutionary wars. In 1936, Alice DeLamar - one of the most prominent New York, Palm Beach and Weston socialites of her time - opened the Cobb's Mill Inn restaurant, which over the years, hosted several U.S. presidents and served as the romantic setting for thousands of weddings.

Improving Energy Efficiency

Today we are at a very interesting project a place called the Cobb's Mill Inn and it was constructed somewhere between 1750 and 1775 the original part of the building. It was originally a saw mill because of its location on the river, let's take a look. This is the main dining room of the building. We can see it is a beautiful old historic building, in fact the walls aren't plum and things aren't leveled and they are all settled, twisted and so forth, but that is the charm with this building. The problem is that in the last winter season that this restaurant was operating it caused $95,000 to heat this building.

Silverglo Insulation Installed

A 200 year old framing is unevenly spaced and each piece of SilverGlo has to be individually measured and cut for each bag. Once each piece is fitted one part foam is used to seal between the SilverGlo and the rafter and between the individual pieces of SilverGlo. This flat spot here we are going to get above there if there are some ducts up there when it seals the ducts and blow insulation above there so we are insulated on the flat and both slopes coming down this beautiful dining room.

Attic Insulation

We can see big spaces where air from the dining room can come right up into this space free as could be and go right out these roof vents so this insulation is the wrong spot for this insulation. This insulation should be on the flap. If we wanted to make this conditioned space we can do that and our SuperAttic system does that does that for example but we would have to put air tight thermal boundary on the bottom of the rafters in order to accomplish that. In this case what we are going to do is establish our thermal boundary on this flat part, air seal the transition between the flat and the slopes from underneath and seal these ducts and then we are going to blow insulation in this attic all the way down.

Full Video Transcript Below:

Hi. I'm Larry Janesky from Dr. Energy Saver. It is November 20th and winter is coming as it always does and today we are at a very interesting project a place called the Cobb's Mill Inn and it was constructed somewhere between 1750 and 1775 the original part of the building. It was originally a saw mill because of its location on the river, let's take a look. This is the main dining room of the building. We can see it is a beautiful old historic building, in fact the walls aren't plum and things aren't leveled and they are all settled, twisted and so forth, but that is the charm with this building. The problem is that in the last winter season that this restaurant was operating it caused $95,000 to heat this building. It was reported to us anyway. We look at the building and we see we have this beautiful bottom of the roof here.

The problem is that when we look at the bottom of the roof deck we can see the bottom of the cedar shingles and air from the building can go right between those singles right out so this roof leaks quite a bit of air in addition there is no insulation whatsoever. Unfortunately, the only way we can address this is to insulate the bottom of the roof deck and we are going do it with SilverGlo insulation by putting insulation boards and air sealing them. We have got our air seal and insulation at the top of the building. A 200-year-old framing is unevenly spaced and each piece of SilverGlo has to be individually measured and cut for each bag. Once each piece is fitted one part foam is used to seal between the SilverGlo and the rafter and between the individual pieces of SilverGlo. This flat spot here we are going to get above there if there are some ducts up there when it seals the ducts and blow insulation above there so we are insulated on the flat and both slopes coming down this beautiful dining room.

Part of the job here Dr. Energy Saver is calling in spaces that no one else wants will or would ever want to be in any event. Here we are in this little attic space over the main dining room and we show you a problem that is probably caused the whoever pays the heating bills in this building a lot of money over the years over perhaps 100 years and that is the here we have insulation on the bottom of the rafters. Okay, I want my thermal boundary here. Therefore this space should be conditioned space, which is fine it makes sense because we have ducts here and if ducts are in conditioned space they perform better. The problem is it is really not conditioned space because right over our heads we have a series of roof vents when you are vent an attic what you are saying is this attic will be unconditioned. This attic will be hot in the summer, very cold in the winter and the ventilation will let any heat that leaks in the building out into the sky and the problem is that this attic is nowhere near air sealed.

We can see big spaces where hair from the dining room can come right up into this space free as could be and go right out these roof vents so this insulation is the wrong spot for this insulation. This insulation should be on the flap. If we wanted to make this conditioned space we can do that and our SuperAttic system does that does that for example but we would have to put air tight thermal boundary on the bottom of the rafters in order to accomplish that. In this case what we are going to do is establish our thermal boundary on this flat part, air seal the transition between the flat and the slopes from underneath and seal these ducts and then we are going to blow insulation in this attic all the way down.

The ceiling in this building is now air tight and insulated and ready for drywall as the homeowner wanted. If you like to make your home more energy-efficient, prevent drafts and make rooms more comfortable make rooms cooler in the summer time, make rooms warmer in the winter time, lower your energy bills and be more comfortable at home, call Dr. Energy Saver we would love to help you. Contact us for a home energy evaluation and written estimate.