We’ve been spending the week buttoning up the interior as we get ready to cover the walls this weekend. That’s included re-running the electrical in the east wall after last week’s re-frame and spending some time documenting all the framing and systems so that we have a record of everything as built to refer to when it’s no longer just right there in front of us! With those chores done it was time to dive fully into insulating the walls and ceiling.
Before filling the wall cavities, I took some time to spray the backs of our electrical boxes with expanding foam. This allows us to get a little bit of insulation in the narrow space between the back of the boxes and the exterior sheathing, and foaming the wires keeps cold air from leaking into the building through the wire penetrations. We’ll follow this up with gaskets on all our electrical faceplates for additional sealing later. I also foam any penetrations through the walls, and around the door and windows. (Remember if you do this to ALWAYS get the blue can for windows and doors – it’s a different formula of foam that is compressible once expanded, and it won’t distort your frames potentially binding your windows or doors!) I’ve already mentioned my love of the foam gun over the single-use cans of foam, and window frames are one place where that added bit of control is hugely helpful at keeping the foam where you want it and limiting the mess.
After everything was foamed, we filled the walls and remaining ceiling cavity with R-15 Rockwool. I’m totally sold on mineral wool, and it’ll be my go-to insulation on future builds. I’ll share more about working with it and how it fits into our overall insulation strategy in tomorrow’s post!
x Liz
