Paul Caverly is the president of Green Vision Homes and I recently checked in on Paul’s Deep Energy Retrofit (DER) taking place north of Bloor and west of Dufferin Streets; what a refreshing retrofit.
Paul and I discussed the challenges in doing DERs in 100 year old homes with issues that range from dealing with crumbling foundations to floor joists that are sagging, notched and listing to one side. These jobs are not for the faint hearted!
The house in question was a semi-detached home tucked into a nice residential street. With a triple brick foundation and a double brick above grade wall, Paul and his client went for exterior insulation with a new air barrier system. By doing the exterior DER Paul avoided the perceived loss of space.
From footing to top-plate and taking care to wrap the air barrier for continuity around the top of the walls bridging to the outside insulation to the inside. It was clear Paul designed his retrofit to avoid thermal bridges with details such as insulated returns for the window rough openings, the below slab insulation and the flashing detailing between above and below grade wall details.