Old Farmhouse Upgrades?

[gibbings]

We live in an 1884 farmhouse located in Southwestern Ontario. Exterior is brick, 2 storeys (plus walkout basement exposed at the back). Basement is dirt floor. All new windows and doors throughtout. We heat with a centrally located wood stove (and some fans to move the heat), backed up by a 2006 oil furnace. Now what? Where can I find the best bang for my efficiency buck? All thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[RobertSmalls]

Air sealing. Seal the house up as tightly as you can, so your heat stops blowing out through the various seams in the house. I'd start by looking for obvious air leaks with a wet hand on a windy day.

Once you do a few iterations of fixing the obvious leaks, then you may consider having a professional come in and do an energy audit. They'd be able to locate any remaining leaks, as well as underinsulated spots.

Do you know what kind of insulation you currently have?

[Piwoslaw]

Have you insulated the attic? And maybe the ground floor from the basement side?

[Daox]

I completely agree with RobertSmalls. Air sealing is by far the most important thing to do. Thankfully, its also the cheapest and easiest thing to do (besides general conservation like keeping the heat lower in winter, higher in summer).

There is a decent series of blog articles on how I did a DIY air leak test on my house and went about fixing some of the issues. There is still a lot to be done though.

http://ecorenovator.org/series/sealing-the-house/

[Ryland]

Did you install the doors and windows? make sure that they were done right and that the space between the window frame and the house framing was sealed with something like expanding foam, otherwise your new windows are no better then old windows.
Attic insulation is a must, so is attic air sealing, every time a wire, pipe or wall top plate enters the attic it creates a leak point, add those all up and you have a good size hole in the top of your house.
How good is your wood stove? there are two things to look for in a wood stove, how much heat it is pulling out of the fire before venting the smoke up the chimney and how much of the energy in the wood is being extracted from the wood, a good wood stove will burn clean, you will end up with very little ash and the ash will be light grey, never black, black ash still has heat energy and can be burned more, the chimney should also be clean, you will get a little bit of brittle black soot, but it should never be gooy or tar like and it shouldn't be hard to remove.
I also like the fan heat extractors that go on the chimney because they move the air around the room while pulling more heat out of the smoke.

[S-F]

Another important thing to do would be to put some 6 mil poly then XPS on the basement floor and then screed some concrete over it. All the moisture that dirt floor is leaking into the house is going to litterally rot it away. If you seal everything up it will happen that much faster. Fortunately you have a wood stove down there drying everything out.

[AC_Hacker]

I read through the string so far, and I'd say that all of the advice is spot on, and also in the right order. I suppose I shouldn't be amazed, having read so many well-thought postings from these folks, but I am...

I'm hard-pressed to find anything additional, but my addition would be that insulating properly is perhaps not as well understood as it should be. If you think that insulation will help you, you should acquaint yourself with the proper way to do it.

I can think of no better resource for you than a home insulating manual published by your government (Canada), called Keeping the Heat In and available at no cost.

The link above is to a web version of the book, and you can browse by the chapter. You can also download a PDF of the book here... be patient, the book is huge.

There are other resources available, and they merit study, but I was completely impressed with the thoroughness and detail of the above resource, especially since, for northern climates such as your, moisture control becomes no less a problem than heat-loss control.

* * *

All of us here at EcoRenovator are wrestling with ways to properly insulate existing houses that were not constructed to be properly insulated.

There is a field of development that seeks to design and build housed that can be properly insulated and currently the best work is being done by an international group called Passive House. There is a world of information available on the web, and although it may not help you in your immediate project, you might benefit by seeing what is possible.

But, for existing housing special care and attention must be given to heat losses around the transition from wall-to-ceiling and wall-to-floor. The Canadian manual goes into this in great detail, but these areas are frequently overlooked, even by the best of us.

* * *

There is a dandy collection of free calculating tools, information resources and inspiration resources here at Build it Solar.

Best Regards,

-AC_Hacker

[gibbings]

Wow. I've been checking out this forum pretty well every day for the last year, I guess I should have expected this, but WOW. Thank you all very much for your input, this definitely gives me a couple of different directions to go in.

To answer a few of the questions listed:
I'm not sure of what type of insulation is present (if at all!). I haven't actually opened up any exterior walls yet, as I don't want to open a can of worms until I'm confident that I can afford to fix the issues in a timely manner (we may tear apart the whole upper floor after heating season ends in the spring).

The windows and doors were all professionally installed by a trusted contractor. He is one of the best there is, I have no doubt that they were 'over' installed.

Question back to the hive mind:
Assume that I sealed up all of the air gaps. Would you insulate the underside of the basement floor (and with what type of insulation) or would you cover the dirt basement floor with poly/xps/concrete as suggested?

All of your help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[S-F]

Once your house is thoroughly air sealed you should flatten out the earth in the basement, lay down 6 mil poly and then lay down XPS (NOT polyiso). You can alternatively use EPS which is cheaper but it will take up more space. Then screed a slab over it all. You will be amazed by how nice you basement will smell and how boxes don't get moldy and tools don't rust. Also your house will be less likely to rot along with your tools. Air sealing will trap all of the basement moisture which is currently escaping through God knows where to the outside.
As to your question, it is both insulating and sealing out moisture. The XPS/EPS is a fairly decent insulation. If you're going to do it shoot for roughly R-10 under the slab (2" of XPS). This will also go a long way toward reducing your radon levels. Have you checked those BTW? As you seal up the house radon will become more and more of an issue.