You might want go to the historic homeworks forum and browse, or even contact the forum owner, John Leeke. He's in ME and does consultations for old house projects. Since he may be close to you, that might be useful. Of course, one of your options is not insulating, either none at all or just doing some insulation in the highest ceiling. For instance just doing the space above the second floor ceiling and under the attic flooring, along with a very good job of sealing air infiltration into the heated space. Installing in-wall insulation is always hard on old houses because of cavity obstructions, access (either exterior or interior wall clading needs to be removed), technical consequences regarding vapor planes, etc. Plus there are some (and I am one) who are not convinced that wall insulation (at least as most people today think of it) is actually good for an old house's long-term survival. It is a modern technology that is somewhat at odds with the technology that has sustained these old timber-framed buildings so well, for so long. While I recognize the benefits of improving energy efficiency, limiting yourself to attic floor insulation, air infiltration control, and superior penetration -both door and window - weatherstripping will make an immediate, big difference on energy use and cost, without the potentially long term cost to the building. Depending on how you heat, it might also make sense to consider adding some renewable energy capacity to achieve more savings and efficiency rather than just focusing on trying to keep all the heat in. Lest you think that I am merely talking through my hat from a milder climate than yours, I should point out that I'm actually in northern NY, with a more severe winter than yours. My house is probably a dozen or so years younger than yours, with its original, intact, interior and exterior surfaces. I initially thought we'd have to remove one or the other, but fortunately I put the decision off long enough to have progressed beyond the conventional wisdom to a more nuanced view of how my building works, as opposed to how more modern ones do. We heat with wood (mostly from our own woodlot), and are planning to add significant solar thermal and PV components this year, so we are trying to improve the energy profile that way instead filling the walls with insulation. Something you might want to explore before you commit to this decision is what is actually in your walls and what kind of bracing you have. Info about this will help you decide whether some of the sprayed-in/blown-in type products would even work in your building. The average contractor really has no idea how to handle old houses, so you really need to talk to an old house expert. (When I go to Home Show exhibitions, I am often shocked at how glib and uninformed the retro-fit insulation guys often are about how to work with truly old buildings, especially the spray-in/blow-in companies. Their experience and notions of old are really more about houses built after, say, 1930.) If you haven't already done so, you can make a big difference with tightening up the house with caulk and weatherstripping and buy yourself more time to get fully up to speed on this topic. The quest for environmental and energy efficiency has to be balanced by the net environmental gain realized by protecting and preserving existing structures for many more years. Here is a link that might be useful: John Leeke's forum, very useful for old house owners

Since you have already removed the plaster and lathe, the walls will be your number one priority. First, repair and repoint the masonry wherever needed. Then apply a liquid vapour barrier to the inside of the masonry. Next, recommended insulation includes closed cell polyurethane spray (my favourite), expanded polystyrene board (XPS), or extruded polystyrene (EPS) depending on your target R factor, the space you have to work with or other variables. Pay special attention to sealing the old window frames to the new insulation, even building new internal frames if necessary. Your goal is to make the insulation as tight and free from air movement as possible. Read the up-to-date digest in the link below from one of the leading experts in the field for details. Once you're done, get to work on the other areas of your home. Here is a link that might be useful: . Building Science Digest 114

I think insulating the attic between the second story and the attic is done by lifting the attic floor (if any) and installing the insulation between the attic floor joists and on top of the second story ceiling. It is usually described as the best first step towards energy conservation. I don't think it needs to involve the second story ceiling, at all (other than being careful not to bash up the plaster keys from the top side.) You may be worried about the need for a vapor barrier between living space and insulation. I wish there was a definitive answer on this one, but in fact there are two schools of thought. I happen to believe that all things considered, it's better to insulate between the second story and attic space, no matter what, even without a vapor barrier. You can paint the ceiling with vapor retardant paint, which does help. The other school of thought is that you need a VB. I agree about VB in walls, but am not so worried about attics. I know there is a risk you could have condensation within the insulation, but unlike walls it's not a really inaccessible space. You could monitor it, if you found it was a big problem. Another way to handle this is with agressive use of vent fans, and particularly meticulous attention to sealing up infiltration lower down on the building. The good news is that while insulation is not free, it's not that bad either, and this year I think there is a tax credit. And it's something that ordinary people can do themselves. There hardest part is pulling up the attic floor if it's nailed down. If your daughter eventually decides to make part of the attic into living space the insulation won't need to be torn out, either. YOu might want to check another thread by Abbey1930, where I blathered on about my theory of insulation. HTH, Molly~

nathan, Settling was indeed a problem with blown in insulation, but that's in years' past. These days we use "dense packing" when blowing into confined framing bays, like wall stud bays, or ceiling rafter bays. If you blew a thickness of cellulose, say 24", it'd be fairly low density, all fluffed up with air. Come back 6 months later and it will have settles in height until it reached it's natural settling density of 2.7 lbs per cubic foot. Come back five years later it'll still be at that settled depth and at that settled density. so we "dense pack" the cells, running a fairly lean mix out fo the blower, and look for about 3.5 pound per cubic foot. The only way to know what you;re getting is by experience. The easiest way for a DIY to gain that experience is to screw together a mock stud bay; a couple of 2x6 studs, a cap and sole plate, and a sheet of ply on each side. Drill a hole in one sheet of ply, insert your hose, and blow in the cells, working the hose out of the cavity as you blow. You can caluculate the volume of the bay, then working with the 3.5 lb/cf density, find out how many pounds of cellulose you need to be stuffing into that bay. Each bag of cellulose weighs a certain amount, to it's fairly easy to figure. Then unscrew the ply off one side of the mocked up bay and see how well your coverage is. Then repeat. Once you get the knack, then you can have at it. It's a sight/sound/feel thing when dense packing, but easy to accomplish. Since your walls are open to the studs, you can use mesh netting on the faces of the studs, then dense pack, then drywall. The mesh netting makes it easy to see that the bays are being properly filled. There are some photos posted in the "spray insulation in attic" thread. SLightly different method as those walls also have furring strips on them. If you were to just hang the poly vapor barrier then blow in the cells, the cells would blow the poly off the wall. Dense packing can even bow out 1/2" drywall on 24" studs. 16" framing is usually okay, upping to 5/8ths inch sheetrock is near bulletproof. You can also wet spray cellulose into open stud bays. The wet cells stick in place due to the water content. But there is a certain amount of operator skill required there so that the minimum amount of water is used, as drying times before being able to hang the sheetrock can be lengthy. Personally I don't wet spray. Mongo