I just thought of a possibility. Hang the drywall. Then do it like they retrofit old houses with dry cellulose. Since it's horizontal, you would need to drill a hole at both ends between the rafters to be able to fill each section. Would need to use an L shape blower head. Before hanging drywall, measure how much sf is between the rafters. This way the installers can measure how much they blow into each cavity to make sure it's full. I've never heard of doing this....just throwing it out. Ya never know tho. I sure wish this site would let you modify a mess after it's been posted!!!!!

Hi illinigirl, The standard insulation used under basement floors is rigid insulation (XPS -- extruded polystrene). It comes in 2 inch thick often blue pieces of styrofoam. Dow manufacturers it among others. It is not spray foam. We used it in our build -- we are in southern Canada. The labour to lay the rigid insulation sheets was not high. The guys had to dig away a bit more gravel so the basement ceiling level was not compromised. They used the red tuck tape to attach the sheets to each other. This allowed the concrete flat workers to pour the floor with wheel barrow loads. I am not sure yet what a difference it will make as we are partway through our build. We have hydronic in-floor heat that was just turned on for the basement level. The floor is wonderfully warm (mostly due to the in-floor coils). We were required by code to place the rigid insulation because of our planned in-floor heat. Otherwise, I understand, the heat from the coils would not just heat upwards and instead would have been wasted heating underground? We did place the rigid insulation around the perimeter of our our unheated garage. I will go and step on the parts of the garage floor that have the insulation vs the parts that don't to see if I can detect a big difference and report back. Our architect spec'd for this rigid insulation under the basement slab. At the time, we had not planned for the in-floor heat. In other words, he felt it was a good practice even without in floor. The rigid insulation sheets are not cheap. We paid $25.00 a sheet (each one is 2 feet by 8 feet). We are in Canada where everything seems pricier. You can calculate the area needing coverage and see how much your builder is charging for labour vs material to help you decide if the price is reasonable. Don't forget the tack tape is also not cheap. Best of luck. Carol

As it turns out the problem isn't the roof but the airshaft/dumbwaiter in the middle of the house, from ground floor to roof. Major chimney effect/stack effect problem we hope to fix soon. We opened up the middle floor airshaft space (cutting through metal ducts providing passive ventilation off the ground floor bathroom) and took out the dumbwaiter space, and turns out that the duct work went from floor 1 to roof venting floors 1-2 bathrooms, with old turbines on the roof that act like an open window to the roof, above the dumbwaiter space. No venting off the third floor at all. And the airshaft is a lot of freeflowing air next to the open duct work, with a roof skylight at the top of it. So now when it's cold on floor 2 it's cold in the floor 1 bathroom - it's an open window. Our plan now is to pull out the duct through floor 3, patch the roof, take out the skylight on teh roof and use that space to vent all 3 bathrooms with 4" or 6" vents, and put a ceiling over the 2nd floor to stop the chimney effect. Hopefully this will make a big difference.

I'll tell you ray HVAC wasn't my trade of choice, it wasn't even in the top 30 list, it just happened and I couldn't wait to move on. Personally I think the trade sucked with no sense of achievement and just became basic hard work, so I moved into other trades, but again learned they also became basic unrewarding jobs with only a pay check. No more rewarding than hauling hay or standing on an assembly line to me so I moved on. Do you really think I spent my life at Baylor doing that job? I've never worked at one place longer than 4 years in my life with exception to the last 20 before retirement and it wasn't a trade. My real passion started in 1975 when I enrolled into the university of Kentucky to major in chemical and electrical engineering so I could help develop sustainable alternative sources of energy inspired by the oil embargo of 73-74. The goal ended when I discovered my level of intelligence was par, but I had a problem with retention and attention. I moved to Texas and enrolled into a HVAC technician program which at the time was where many college rejects and laid off blue color workers went at the time. After years of learning and working in many trades I realized I never felt satisfied with any and was only pulling a cart. I was smart enough to not want to pull a cart but knew I wanted to ride the cart. Riding the cart would give me the freedom to follow my passion so I made drastic changes in my life and moved again. What I did for the last 20 years before retiring put me on the cart but I'm still not satisfied. I'm still obsessed with my passion from 1975 and still working on sustainable alternative energy and the answer is everywhere (another topic). I'm glad you receive satisfaction from what you do ray, but to be frank you do not impress me, and to be fair I am nothing to be impressed by either. People who are impressive contributed more to humanity than one who learned the basic principles of refrigeration and installing air conditioners. People will never remember what you say but always remember how you made them feel, so good or bad you may remember this. Get off your narcissist highchair old man and realize when you retire all you have is time to the day you die. It's worthless if nothing is done with the time and if you die a rich old man it's a disgrace if both were wasted without giving back. Your opinion is worthless, there are 7 billion in the world to choose from so back off on the all mighty Ray rants on how valuable your opinion and time is. I service AMERICA in all the trades, so what!