Before & After Photos

The “rim joist” is the perimeter of the floor framing system along the exterior of the house. The joints and gaps between all the framing members allow for a lot of air leakage into the house. The rim joist is seldom insulated and never air sealed. Basement ceiling insulation, especially fiberglass batts, doesn’t stop the flow of cold air into your home. Cold floors, drafty, uncomfortable rooms, cold basement/lower level, higher heating and cooling bills and more condensation in the basement or crawl space in the summer are all results of a leaky or poorly insulated rim joist.

Fogarty's Home Services provides a solution that is a two part expanding spray foam that is installed on rim joist and over sill plate to seal all air leaks from the outside and insulate this important area of your home. Our spray foam has a high insulation value per inch of R7, and because it expands, it seals all cracks and gaps and joints where air from the outside enters your home.  The results are warmer floors, less drafts, more comfortable rooms, your house is easier to heat and costs less to heat, less summertime condensation on cold basement surfaces.

The homeowner called Fogarty's Home Services concerned about the floors above the basement door being cold. We found that the existing door was old and drafty. We replaced the basement door with a steel-insulated basement door. Now the floors are warmer and the basement is more comfortable.

This customer in Wethersfield, CT called us due to her bulkhead door leaking water into her basement.

Unfortunately, the homeowner had an oversized and old bulkhead door that was not properly sealed. During rainstorms, water leaked into the basement. Since it did not sit right and leaked, it had to be covered in a tarp, meaning it was not used. However, the homeowner still wanted to keep a bulkhead due to the extra means of egress it provided. 

Luckily, Fogarty's Home Services was able to help this homeowner. We were able to install a beautiful new bulkhead door that was the correct size for the pre-existing concrete. We caulked around the edges and installed flashing behind the door to ensure a tight fit.  Combining this with our other solutions ensures that this homeowner and her wife will have a safe, warm, and dry basement for years to come! 

This customer called us when their home did not score well on a home energy audit.  Upon inspection, Fogarty's Home Services found their kneewalls were under-insulated and not properly air sealed. 

A kneewall space is created when a finished room is built within a sloped roof. A short wall called a “kneewall” forms a triangular space which may or may not be accessible with a short door or access panel. The floor of the kneewall space forms the ceiling of the room below it. The floor and kneewall itself are open to the kneewall space side with exposed fiberglass batts. Since fiberglass does not stop air flow, the insulation does next to nothing to air seal and insulate. The floor of the upper level, the ceiling of the lower level and the kneewall are all cold in winter and hot (from radiant roof heat) in the summer. The kneewall space is not suitable for storage since it is dusty and very cold or hot.

Fogarty's Home Services installed Blocks of SilverGlo™ foam insulation between the ceiling joist bays.  Silver-Glo™ foam insulation is installed under the rafters up to the kneewall and sealed at the top with foam sealant. SilverGlo™ increases the R-value by 24% compared to regular EPS foam. SilverGlo™ also has a radiant barrier on both sides to reflect roof heat out in the summer and house heat back in during the winter. The addition of this radiant barrier gives some thermal benefit so the insulation isn’t left alone to do all the work. After installation, inside air can’t get out of the house through the kneewall spaces and outside air can’t get in. 

The Results, significantly warmer upstairs room in the winter, cooler room upstairs in the hot weather, less drafts, more comfort, less dust. A kneewall space suit-able for clean storage. Lower fuel and electric bills.

The owner of a beautiful brick home in West Springfield, MA contacted Fogarty's Home Services to help insulate his home. He was experiencing cold drafts and wanted to resolve this issue. One of our Home Comfort Specialists discovered that there were sloped stairwell ceilings that were open to the attic when conducting this homeowner's free home energy evaluation. When a stairwell has a sloped ceiling forming a big triangular space that is open to the attic, it creates a heat loss (winter) and heat gain (summer) problem in the home. The sidewalls of the open well into the attic are hard to insulate and often leak air from the walls of your house into the attic. The stairwell ceiling radiates heat from the house in to the attic, and from the hot attic to the house in the summer. Insulating the attic properly is not possible with this big stairwell hole in it. Fogarty's Home Services installed a cover made of wood over this stairwell at the attic floor level. Appropriate framing and wood sheets were used. The cover was sealed with expanding polyurethane foam to make it airtight. Blown insulation can now be installed over the attic floor and the stairwell cover. The sturdy cover doesn't pose a fall hazard if someone crawls into the attic in the future. Now, this happy customer is reporting less air leakage, less unwanted heat loss and heat gain, and the attic can be insulated properly.