Insulation
Our contractor, Loop Construction, worked with Nate Redwitz and his crew at Home Energy Control (HEC) Technologies to give us as tight a thermal envelope as we could afford and reasonably apply to our existing 94-year-old home. Achieving the perfect insulation implementation was challenging considering the fact that our project was an addition rather than a tear-down, and we would therefore not be opening all walls to allow for from-scratch whole-house insulation. It was easy to implement from-scratch insulation in the new part of the house, where we selected a combination of spray foam (not a "green" material but sustainable in that it is highly effective at stopping air and moisture infilatration) and dense pack cellulose (a "green" material, essentially using recycled newspaper). In the original portions of the house, exterior holes were made in the stucco and wet, dense pack cellulose was blown in to fill existing wall cavities and bulk up existing (and antiquated) insulation. Cellulose insulation gives an R-value of 3.8 per inch; spray foam has an R-value of 6.4 per inch.
Ventilation
Once our home's thermal envelope was as tight as we could get it within our budget and in consideration of the fact that we were not tearing down and starting over (which we didn't want to do; we love our old home!), we were happy to realize the many benefits of good insulation, including energy efficiency and reduced energy costs. What we learned, though, was that a tightly sealed home, if not properly ventilated, could lead to other issues -- primarily concerning our health. Our geothermal contractor, Advanced Geothermal, helped us crystalize our thoughts on this topic by referring us to an accessible piece on mechanical ventilation, "Ventilation Options for Green Homes." We opted to go the HRV (heat recovery ventilator, sometimes referred to as ERV, energy recovery ventilator) route and are utilizing it to optimize the distribution of heated/cooled air, as well as to refresh our indoor air.
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