We were in Marblehead Massachusetts performing insulation work on a cape style house, and we were able to help this customer cut the cost by executing the work under the town rebate program. If you’re looking for ways to save energy and need ways to help pay for it the program is great. In this video the cape house has a lot of different ports where the air can come into the attic, and the video focuses on how to insulate a cape style house and where to look for spray foam points.
This attic has fiberglass insulation up to an R-30; code in Marblehead is R-38, but more importantly, when you look at the floor of the attic, you can see the foam that we have started installing. The 2×4 in the attic that is being pointed to is called a partition plate. We are sealing the partition plate from the air that goes through it. Tons of air goes through your partition plate in a cape style home. We check all the vent pipes, partition plates, plumbing, chimney, and electrical penetrations in the attic and seal them so the air doesn’t go through.
It’s hard to make out, but below you can see a picture of a skylight that we used spray foam insulation to insulate. The vertical 2×4’s are the sides of the skylight. These are very tough to insulate and also suck tons of energy up and above the living space. We foam all the way around it, and then we can start putting the cellulose insulation. The key to a proper insulation job is air sealing. The movement of air that takes the heat out of your home. If you can ristrict the flow of air out of your home you retain more heat in your home for a longer period of time. Any material like cellulose that we put over it has an R-value, which can be built up much more effectively after the air sealing is done. The combination adds up to some big savings on your fuel bills. 
In the basement we air-seal the rim joist with spray foam insulation. It’s hard to see, but hopefully you can pick up where we seal the fieldstone foundation. We foam all the way along the rim joist all the way around the home. What this does is restricts the air from coming into the home in the base; which heats up and rises through the home. Below is a picture of a section of joist around the rim of the foundation.
