Comfort Upgrades

With the exterior walls now forming a sort of wall cavity (and with some drywall up - to be discussed in an upcoming post), the house was ready for insulation.  But while my walls were still open, I figured it was a good opportunity to take advantage of an off-season deal on A/C installation.  By routing the wires and pipes mostly within the walls, the installation winds up looking quite a bit cleaner.

In order to reduce noise pollution and keep the house well-insulated, I went with a soy-based spray foam that provides good acoustic insulation while also providing R-19 within my 3.5-inch walls.  The only real downside was price - this stuff doesn't come cheap - but it did cut my winter heating bill in half.

I researched online to find do-it-yourself foam kits... but due to the equipment needed to spray foam, it worked out cheaper to pay an insulation company to do it for me.  The process is a bit messy, and I had to vacate my home for a day.  Here you can see a foam-filled wall cavity part-way through the process.  The floor is covered with foam shavings.

I also went ahead and installed the security monitoring system.  It is programmed to call me on my cell phone if any of the doors or windows are opened while I'm away, or if the motion sensor / glass break sensor gets triggered.  The alarm also makes quite a ruckus.