How to Insulate a Basement | This Old House

I gotta say this is a great basement it's got a high ceiling plenty of clearance under the carrying beam and what I'm going to do today is I'm going to show you how to insulate the basement walls and get you prepped for drywall in it all right now whenever you do in a basement over the main concern that you always have to worry about is moisture and that's why you had me install this plastic panel right we did this a few weeks ago what we're looking for is any condensation that should collect on the plastic if it collects between the plastic and the foundation that means the foundation is not sealed next thing I look for any condensation that you collect on the surface of the plastic that's nice and dry so weird right we're all set well we're all set except for one thing I saw a couple of rust marks right here from these steel ties in the walls and that tells me that the water might be leaking down get any water in this corner of the basement yeah a little bit maybe we've got a downspout up here I think that might be need to be redirected could be well these concrete ties actually hold the forms when they pour the foundation when they remove the forms they have to break off these steel ties when they do that they should seal them from the outside to stop water from coming in now you've got a few of them that the water's coming in here so before we get started I'm going to show you how to plug these holes from the inside all right Brady take the center punch put it on that tie and try to drive it through going in oh yeah good all right let's get a couple more here Tom how far should these be going through they only have to go into about a quarter to a half an inch good to plug the holes we're going to mix up some hydraulics meant it's really fine and it's ideal for this application I'm going to put it in some water now I don't want to mix up too much because it sets up really fast I won't only want to put mix up as much as I need okay I'm mixing it up till it's like the consistency of peanut butter now once I put it in the hole it's going to actually expand inside the hole it's going to fill that gap up so water can't leak through all right now before I apply the hydraulic cement to the hole I want you to take that bottle and Miss the hole with water the reason I want you to wet the concrete is I don't want it to take all the water out of my head relics mint so it'll dry evenly now I just want to push it in the hole just want to force it right in there with the trial squeeze it off and then we just want to flat it out okay get to the next one we're gonna lose that batch great starting to get a little stiffed on but I can see how you can work it right in there yep get it in there all right before we lose the whole bucket I got a couple over here I want to grab just those holes for me yep oh yeah this is what we're going to insulate your foundation with it's a two foot wide by 8 foot high by 2 inches thick sheet of polystyrene it has a tongue and groove joint so when the pieces go together it'll be nice and tight and we're going to apply it to your foundation with an adhesive this is a foam board adhesive it's going to stick the foam right to the foundation specifically formulated for this application it's very important that you don't have an adhesive with a solvent in it because the solvent would actually deteriorate or eat the foam okay now just tip the top into that space up above push it into the corner and hold it against the foundation okay over there for a minute I'll get another sheet alright next sheet okay it's like now we're ready to mark the next piece to go around this Karen so I'm going to lay this piece on top of the last piece that we installed line it up I'll take a piece of scrap foam board two feet wide place it against the beam and I'm going to mark along this end of it take it bring it down and line this side up with the outside edge of the beam right here and I'm gonna put a mark right there take my level go across the bottom of the beam with a level line and Mark between my two marks now I'll cut that piece out this is where the slot needs to be cut for the beam I have a reference line on each side of the beam I want to extend those all the way up to the top of the sheet just using the end of my tape to cut a groove now I'll just cut it out with a handsaw see how it fits okay okay let's get the next one okay there you go that's pretty good Tom about an hour we got this whole wall up I told you it's gonna go fast now we have to think about how you're going to attach your drywall to the wall and how we're going to do that we're actually going to make a wood grid system using this 1 by 3 spruce board first thing I did is I measure to the top of the foundation over here and then I measure down about three inches and I put a line over here I then measured up off the floor about 3 inches and placed another line then I divided the space in half and put a centerline I divided the top space in half put another line divided the bottom space in half with another line I got it so we're gonna have five horizontal nailing strips right next thing we're going to do is we're going to snap some chalk lines all the way across the wall and apply our wood strips alright here's how we're going to attach the spruce boards to the wall this is called a spring spike it doesn't have a point on the end like a regular nail but it has a little band on the end it acts like a spring when I drive this in through the concrete that spring will try to straighten out holding this bike into the wall the spring spike is four inches long I have to drill a hole fly hole has to be five inches deep because I don't want the spring spike to bottom out when I Drive it home fill the holes I'm using a hammer drill with a 3/16 masonry bit alright that's great now Brady you could actually install a wall board right to the horizontals but I want to create more depth to accommodate the electrical to do that we're going to run war one by three boards only this time vertically right on the surface of the horizontal and to attach them I'm going to use drywall screws now we're attaching our pieces of one by three vertically sixteen inches on center fasten our wall boy to it what do you think Brady Thomas looks excellent well now what we have a to chases we can run a wire down from the ceiling vertically or horizontally behind the uprights by building the wall out we've also created more depth in the wall so now we can use a standard electrical outlet if we want to mount it here we dig out a little bit of insulation and then put it in up against the one by this is fantastic you got me all set I'm gonna get my brother in here this week and help me finish it off well good luck thank you very much you

Channel: This Old House

Views: 2,665,056

Rating: 4.8052964 out of 5

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Basement, insulation, Thermal Insulation Do It Yourself, concrete wall, fiberglass insulation, Tom Silva, Lifestyle, Open, heating, tom silva this old house, tom silva house, tom silva construction, tom silva tools, tommy silva

Id: oKQdo88Ne74

Length: 8min 57sec (537 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 03 2014