nancy817•14d agoProlific Poster

Found out my 1970s adobe has zero insulation in the walls

I was pulling off drywall in the living room last weekend and saw nothing but dirt and straw between the bricks. Has anyone in ABQ dealt with retrofitting insulation into old adobe without losing the natural cooling?

2 comments

2 Comments

gavinb9713d ago

Zero insulation in the walls" is pretty standard for old adobe, I've run into the same thing in a 50s place I worked on. The trick is to use a loose-fill cellulose or spray foam that breathes, but keep the original plaster on the outside so the thermal mass still does its job. You ever look into blown-in insulation from the inside, or are you planning to redo all the drywall anyway?

the_kim13d ago

Did you end up going with blown-in insulation then @gavinb97? I used to think you had to keep adobe totally uninsulated to get the cooling effect, but hearing how people do it without ruining the thermal mass changed my mind.