You forget that American houses, especially lower class ones, are made out of practically cardboard or literally foam. While sealing can help a decent amount most older homes are lucky to have R10 insulation total from drywall to whatever external sheeting exists. Even now most new construction only has to be R15.
That means at best you’d be running the AC 24/7 during the summer months if you live in the 80% of the US that gets above 32c for days at a time.
wasn’t an issue at the time older housing was built. US population was 1/3 what it is today. There was plenty of oil and electricity to go around for everybody.
It was still an issue, the problem was either you just didn’t have the knowledge and/or money to deal with it, were working with bad scientific beliefs based on real problems that were solved differently, or just lived in what used to be a much more mild climate.
In especially the 1930s-1950s the poisonous construction materials did in fact have slowed effects when you had a drafty house, so it became practice and advice to not fully insulate the home, to not create a sealed environment since the homes that did have good insulation and a good seal generally had more ‘mysterious’ deaths that were attributed to ‘stale air’ and even brought back the term ‘miasma’ for a while. It was gas/lead/asbestos/arsenic/CO/CO2/Radon poisoning. But back then they had correlation and used it as causation because why would air ever hurt you.
That and for the most part you had trouble keeping the house warm, not the opposite problem, so the cheapest and time tested solution was more blankets and a stone fireplace for part of the year and just deal with the outside temp the rest of the year, even on really hot days like the record breaking Chicago high of 102 in 1918 where the average was, you know, 80 for the several decades before and after that.
to not create a sealed environment since the homes that did have good insulation and a good seal generally had more ‘mysterious’ deaths that were attributed to ‘stale air’ and even brought back the term ‘miasma’ for a while.
I wish I had foam. My house was built in the 1920s and as such has plaster walls over lath, with a layer of studs behind and asbestos siding over the exterior sheath. Did you notice what’s missing from that list? That’s right: Insulation!
I insulated the shit out of my roof when I had the ceiling out of the second story (there is no attic), but the walls basically may as well just not be there as far as the season’s temperature is concerned, whatever it is. Somehow, some way, I’m going to have to stab holes through the plaster and blow in some insulation material. The bottoms of the exterior walls are literally open into the basement, though, so I have some work to do down there first.
On the bright side, this place was built back when they were still using real timber so it’s probably not going to fall down until much later after all of the other new construction around here.
using real timber so it’s probably not going to fall down
Nothing wrong with today’s lumber, but there’s a lot wrong with antique building standards of the 1920’s + lack of code enforcement + old carpenters attitude of “that’s the way it’s always been done” if they even knew the current/correct rules in the first place.
A lot of near furniture grade lumber was used in old houses because it was common and cheaply available- unlike now. But there is no special advantage to using it in old houses for structural purposes. Today’s houses are as engineered as automobiles are for cost and safety.
At least you can theoretically take those apart and put them back up, right?
There’s old wiring behind my walls, too. I may ultimately just have to resort to sledgehammering them all and running Romex, then putting drywall back up to replace the plaster.
old wiring is sketchy. materials degrade over time. plastic polymer technology used in insulators before the late 70’s was not what it is today. insulation on new wires will last 80++ years. The old stuff, not so much…
Aye. And there are still some runs of cloth insulated stuff in my basement. If I ever touch that (literally), those lengths will have to be replaced. Things to do, things to do.
I know all about knob and tube, yes. There are some thankfully already decommissioned stretches of that nailed to the joists in my basement which I’ve left there as a historical curio.
To be fair, OP said their house is “old and busted”. I live in a century old farm house so I know old and busted.
We run our furnace fan sometimes when it gets hot out as our dug basement stays cool so it’ll blow that cold air through our house. But we have made sure to seal windows better, use black out curtains on the south side of our house (Where the sun tends to be most of the summer) and do what we can without needing to use our Heat Pump or AC units.
Working on it! We have a small hill on the south side that leads to our south hay field. We want to start growing stuff on that hill in the next year or two.
I lived in one of those old 3 deckers that you see all around old cities in the NE US. They were built in the 1930s-40s. It was so drafty that in the winter I could literally feel a breeze coming from gaps around the walls.
My house has a basement that is so much cooler than the outside in the summer that if I put on glasses that have been sitting down there and head outside I’m blind from condensation. lol
You forget that American houses, especially lower class ones, are made out of practically cardboard or literally foam. While sealing can help a decent amount most older homes are lucky to have R10 insulation total from drywall to whatever external sheeting exists. Even now most new construction only has to be R15.
That means at best you’d be running the AC 24/7 during the summer months if you live in the 80% of the US that gets above 32c for days at a time.
wasn’t an issue at the time older housing was built. US population was 1/3 what it is today. There was plenty of oil and electricity to go around for everybody.
It was still an issue, the problem was either you just didn’t have the knowledge and/or money to deal with it, were working with bad scientific beliefs based on real problems that were solved differently, or just lived in what used to be a much more mild climate.
In especially the 1930s-1950s the poisonous construction materials did in fact have slowed effects when you had a drafty house, so it became practice and advice to not fully insulate the home, to not create a sealed environment since the homes that did have good insulation and a good seal generally had more ‘mysterious’ deaths that were attributed to ‘stale air’ and even brought back the term ‘miasma’ for a while. It was gas/lead/asbestos/arsenic/CO/CO2/Radon poisoning. But back then they had correlation and used it as causation because why would air ever hurt you.
That and for the most part you had trouble keeping the house warm, not the opposite problem, so the cheapest and time tested solution was more blankets and a stone fireplace for part of the year and just deal with the outside temp the rest of the year, even on really hot days like the record breaking Chicago high of 102 in 1918 where the average was, you know, 80 for the several decades before and after that.
I wish I had foam. My house was built in the 1920s and as such has plaster walls over lath, with a layer of studs behind and asbestos siding over the exterior sheath. Did you notice what’s missing from that list? That’s right: Insulation!
I insulated the shit out of my roof when I had the ceiling out of the second story (there is no attic), but the walls basically may as well just not be there as far as the season’s temperature is concerned, whatever it is. Somehow, some way, I’m going to have to stab holes through the plaster and blow in some insulation material. The bottoms of the exterior walls are literally open into the basement, though, so I have some work to do down there first.
On the bright side, this place was built back when they were still using real timber so it’s probably not going to fall down until much later after all of the other new construction around here.
using real timber so it’s probably not going to fall down
Nothing wrong with today’s lumber, but there’s a lot wrong with antique building standards of the 1920’s + lack of code enforcement + old carpenters attitude of “that’s the way it’s always been done” if they even knew the current/correct rules in the first place.
A lot of near furniture grade lumber was used in old houses because it was common and cheaply available- unlike now. But there is no special advantage to using it in old houses for structural purposes. Today’s houses are as engineered as automobiles are for cost and safety.
I’m there with you, only difference is my house has tongue in groove wooden interior walls.
tongue AND groove.
At least you can theoretically take those apart and put them back up, right?
There’s old wiring behind my walls, too. I may ultimately just have to resort to sledgehammering them all and running Romex, then putting drywall back up to replace the plaster.
old wiring is sketchy. materials degrade over time. plastic polymer technology used in insulators before the late 70’s was not what it is today. insulation on new wires will last 80++ years. The old stuff, not so much…
Aye. And there are still some runs of cloth insulated stuff in my basement. If I ever touch that (literally), those lengths will have to be replaced. Things to do, things to do.
not touching it (until you replace it) is a good game plan.
that eliminates breakage and just leaves rats as the unpredictable variable.
check out “knob and tube” wiring if you really don’t want to sleep well at night.
that stuff’s a horror show by today’s standards.
I know all about knob and tube, yes. There are some thankfully already decommissioned stretches of that nailed to the joists in my basement which I’ve left there as a historical curio.
To be fair, OP said their house is “old and busted”. I live in a century old farm house so I know old and busted.
We run our furnace fan sometimes when it gets hot out as our dug basement stays cool so it’ll blow that cold air through our house. But we have made sure to seal windows better, use black out curtains on the south side of our house (Where the sun tends to be most of the summer) and do what we can without needing to use our Heat Pump or AC units.
plant shade trees to the south and wait a few years for them to grow?
Working on it! We have a small hill on the south side that leads to our south hay field. We want to start growing stuff on that hill in the next year or two.
simple solutions are the best solutions.
keep it far enough from the house so that you don’t have tree trimming issues when the tree gets big or when a storm hits…
I lived in one of those old 3 deckers that you see all around old cities in the NE US. They were built in the 1930s-40s. It was so drafty that in the winter I could literally feel a breeze coming from gaps around the walls.
My house has a basement that is so much cooler than the outside in the summer that if I put on glasses that have been sitting down there and head outside I’m blind from condensation. lol