hey it's Shannon here again from host improvements comm and today I want to give you a video on insulating this wall behind me and doing the vapor barrier as well okay so we've already got our wall framed we've got our moisture barrier against the concrete in behind it we're in a bi-level here so what you're seeing insulated here is the wooden framing of the basement that's above ground already so we've already got that insulated I'm not sure if you can see here it appears to be sticking out quite a bit the reason for that is it's actually 2x4 framing I put our 20 insulation in here just to up the r-value because we do have the space in behind the new interior wall so that's why it looks like it isn't fitting it it's just that it is thicker it's made for a 2x6 wall we're just trying to get as much r-value as we can when installing insulation you want a fairly snug fit but you don't want to have to pack it in there and get it compacted as soon as you compact this fibrous type insulation you lose your r-value so you know you want to get it fitted in there nice but then fluff it back out anywhere where you've got little compressed areas from your fingers or anywhere that you've got electrical you're going to need to notch around that just so you're making a nice tight fit around any electrical boxes that are in the way as well as any wiring that's running through the wall like this usually the best thing to do is split the batt insulation in half thickness wise and then just lower it over over top of the wire so that it you know the wire basically ends up in the middle somewhere again on in this case we framed with 2x4 walls we've left them away from the concrete about five and a half six inches and the reason for that is because we are going to actually use our 20 insulation in here we're just saving a bit costs with the framing but we're still gaining the extra R value within our 20 instead of our 12 so we've got the upper area already insulated that was done before we framed the wall we're going to insulate this bottom area that's at the concrete surface and then again we're then we're going to lay a bout of insulation as well in the top here where the where the wood ledges the transition between the concrete in the wood so we're we're I'm going to start I've got the electrical wiring running through there so like I said before we just need to roughly split this in half and usually if you just gently pull it'll it'll kind of separate on its own so I've got that separated flip this up tuck the first half in behind here behind the wiring pull it down right to the bottom plate let this one flop back down over it just kind of make sure everything here is just fitting in there just nice not compact it in too much pull it out fluff it up a little bit but yet make sure you're getting contact to all your edges so you don't have a gap otherwise I'll just have cold air coming right through there okay so we got that one there and then if you one more here I'll split it some installations you may want to wear a mask if it bothers you a bit just to keep it out of your odor your nose out of your lungs any little fibers not a bad idea now these are normal stud spacings these are 24 inch stud spacings here we've got the 23 inch wide insulation so everything's fitting in just right you are definitely going to have times where you've got a smaller space where you're working so you're going to need to cut your insulation down into different sizes to do that you can simply use a utility knife just like this measure the space you want to fill in and add about half an inch okay that just gives you that little bit of friction make sure you got enough width there you can simply lay your bad insulation down mark it with your tape measure and simply cut it you know cut on the concrete floor piece of plywood something like that cut your back put it up same thing for length measure the space you have to fill and give yourself about an extra half an inch and fill it in like I said in this case we aren't having to cut anything just yet so we've got our pieces in here there's these these ones are doing for the bottom up these ones are doing top down but then we end up with this void rating behind the wall here because of this being by level so what I like to do is I'm going to take a strip of our 20 insulation that's made for a 16 inch Center I'm going to cut it in half and I'm going to lay it down in behind here to insulate this top wooden void here so I'm going to just lay it simply right on the concrete floor here I'm just eyeballing the center it doesn't have to be perfect in this case because we're filling in a bit of space press down a little bit there you can see it actually cuts fairly easy just make sure you have a few spare blades because you know as you're cutting on that floor that blade gets dull and the sharp of the blade the better the cut is and less frustrated you will be so now this piece here I'm just going to get it in behind this area may have to just lean these ahead or cut them down or whatever I want to make sure that's sitting right down on that wooden ledge fold this back up in there make sure everything is nice and that'll do it you've now got continuous insulation great from the floor space up top that we already did break down through the upper walls top a ledge and down covering the concrete wall okay so we've gone ahead and completely insulated a section of this wall so you can see we just continued on exactly what I was showing you just one of the most important things with it with the fiber batt insulation is this make sure you don't pack it in too tight if you do fluff it back out and you don't want to have any gaps along the edges between any wood or any surface that it's coming up against that's just a place that cold air is going to come straight through okay so we've got that all in there now we want to do our vapor barrier for the vapor barrier you want to check with your local Building Authority to see what they require every place requires certain type of poly vapor barrier used in this case ours goes to the standards of Canada housing so we've got that the Polly's all stamped with the appropriate stamps that they need to to know that we've used the right stuff so we've rolled out a chunk of plastic here on the floor to cover this wall basically really all you need to do to get it going is we're going to stretch it out to the ceiling we've got a hammer stapler here we're just going to throw some staples in to get it hanging up make sure we stretch it out all nice and flat and smooth always try not to miss the wood that you're trying to staple into your to stand up with a hole that you're going to have to patch up with some of this tape any of the joints when you're joining one sheet to another you can use the red duct tape or any kind of case that's it's made for sealing this type of thing you can tape those joints we're going to tape the joints around the electrical outlets here its exterior wall so we've got the vapor boxes there are plastic box that goes on around the outside of the electrical components we're going to cut a hole in our vapor barrier once it's up pull that flange of that box through and tape the two together to seal things up kind of one of the final steps is that then we're going to pull the moisture barrier up that we've got that's coming up onto the wall and fold it up over our vapor barrier tape the two together and then we've created a completely sealed up paper so start out instead of I'm going to come up here now up in this area when you get to the top you need to make a seal as well you could you could use the tape to seal it up here or you can use acoustical sealant which is a sort of a type of caulking we're going to use acoustical sealant eventually so what I'm going to do is I'm going to staple the poly here along the top plate but I want to leave myself three or four inches of a flap that will come up here that I can seal up here after so I'm just going to get it in position in stages okay so I've got it basically started they're hanging I'm just going to move my way along the wall get a roll across the whole top and they're holding it up you so we've got it all hanging we've got a roll we've got one staple and every stud across the top now we've kind of get it all down hanging straight and flapped and no wrinkles and everything and then we can continue to staple down each stud about so every 16 inches is sufficient so we've got the vapor barriers stapled to the wall surface you can see we basically pull out any wrinkles that were in it or anything got it nice and straight straighter you can hang it the better now we've got a plugin box down here receptacle box we need to cut through the vapor barrier we just put up and I like to kind of hole just both the same size just a little bit outside of the the electrical box it's in the wall so simply just run around with your OL tonight trying not to cut the vapor box that's actually around that the electrician put in around the electrical box helps to have a sharp blade which I don't have so I've got my cut out there now if I reach in I can get a hold of that vapor box that the electrician put in there and I pull it through this hole get it out on this side on the inside inside be Paulie here okay so I've pulled it inside wipe off you this poly tends to get staticky so it picks up any dust you go out of the floor or wherever you're going to apply tape just give a bit of a weight to get rid of that excess dust it'll stick a lot better you can see here I've got my flange of that poly box that the electrician put in I'll pull it through here I'm going to use my red duct tape now to seal the two together all around that box okay so I'm just pressed putting some pressure there get things smoothed out stuck together this up sticks pretty well good so you shouldn't have too much trouble with this press it firmly with your hands and all to use this tape anywhere where you've maybe accidentally cut it or punctured a hole through the vapor barrier just simply take a piece of this off and tape it back up to small down the side as well so I'm overlapping onto that flap that I pulled through their side okay so we've created a seal now we're not going to get drafts coming through that plug so now we've got all the penetrations as far as electrical all sealed up taped up that's all complete one of the final steps we have to do is now at the bottom we need to bring the moisture barrier that we've put against the concrete you'll have to check out our other video to see how we did that we're going to pull that up now onto the vapor barrier that we just did and tape the two together to create that bottom seal so we're going to use the same tape again and the stuff sticks really well to itself sometimes first I roll again so I'm going to pull this up get some of that dust off there like I said before daughter up there just pull all the way along that whole area taping the ski together you can if you want as you're going along you can first go along staple that up there that'll definitely okay so we've gone that way now I'm going to go over here pull it up throw a Steve and hold it up there wait that's not put my tape okay so we've taped our bottom we've taped all our electrical boxes the only thing left to do would be to seal the top now this tape doesn't stick particularly well to wood so I still like to use acoustical caulking at the top onto that wood so basically that just comes in a caulking tube type deal so you need a caulking gun to use it it's really messy stuff don't get it on yourself because it tends to attract to anywhere you go it's usually there you end up stepping in and getting on your clothes whatever it's really messy stuff so I try to leave that all to the end do it all in one shot so that I'm not creating any more mess than I have to but basically what would happen there is that up here at the top we would take this flap I'm just going to grab stool we could take this extra flap that we left here we have taken run a bead of acoustical sealant all the way along this edge here fold this flap up stick it into the sealant put some put some staples through about every foot or 16 inches through the plastic into the seal that you did there and that will hold it up there okay so once we're done this hole the rest of the vapor barrier in this job then we'll go back and do all that but it's really not that hard it's just that it's a messy job okay so we've we showed you on this video how to do the insulation how to do the vapor barrier again just check with your local Building Authority and make sure you're using the right products to the right specifications for your for your building zone okay so that's all I've got for you today and again if you want to check any of our other videos I would on our YouTube channel or you can go to a house improvements comm and see what else we have to offer thanks a lot