LESLIE: Lisa in Illinois, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
LISA: I bought an old, two-story, 100-year-old storefront building – a two-story, balloon-frame construction – and I’ve had it completely gutted. Now I’m wondering, after the electrician, what kind of insulation do you recommend. I’m considering wet cellulose or spider fiberglass.
TOM: OK.
LISA: And I wondered if those are what you recommend. I know foam is a really great insulator but I can’t afford to do the whole structure in foam.
TOM: So the walls are off right now?
LISA: Yeah, it’s completely gutted.
TOM: Right. Yeah, I mean a product like isonene would be really cool …
LISA: Yeah.
TOM: … because you could blow it in and seal up all those old gaps. But if you can’t go that way, I guess I would probably just use a standard fiberglass. I would just make sure I did a really good job with choosing the right thickness so that we get it through the entire wall cavity. I would make sure to use a vapor barrier on the inside surface. And I think that you’ll find a very well-insulated, comfortable building if you do that.
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