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Home Improvement Video: Insulate a basement faster, easier & safer

Using stone wool like Roxul is a fast, effective fire block.

Home improvement: Three tips to insulate a basement quickly, safely, and more easily.

Insulation isn’t just about staying warm, it’s about fire and building code, too. Important stuff. And doing it right because, why wouldn’t you? Check out this video and blog below.

Tip #1

Tables. They make life easier.

My table is site-built and simple. Just a scrap sheet of OSB with some channels cut in it. Two by fours underneath keep it solid. You can use sawhorses. I happened to use the Centipede work table this time. The channels enable me to cut—saw really—insulation without resistance.

Using a table paid for itself in about an hour.

Home improvement tip: I like using tables—even if I have to make them like I did here—I think it makes work faster and easier. Every time!

Tip #2

Fire. Insulation—stone wool, like the Roxul insulation here—is for more than thermal. Used properly, it can slow or stop fire. It’s building code too. When I insulate a basement I add vertical fireblocking behind a wall stud every 10-feet of wall. Fixing the house and making upgrades is about building safely as well as quickly and making things look nice.

Vertical fire stop—Roxul is perfect for this, other insulation, not so much—is required every 10-feet on this renovation project

Roxul makes it easier to work neatly. There’s everything from less dust in the air to less stuff to get on your skin.

Tip #3

Work neat. DIY, home improvement and remodeling are difficult enough with creating your own hazards. I like to keep insulation cut-offs and scraps manageable and easily cleaned up; hurling them all higgedly-piggeldy solves zero problems. Unfurling one of the plastic wrappers (note how I cut it open at the beginning of the video) serves as a drop zone I can easily bundle, tie and throw away.

For more tips on how to insulate a basement, DIY, other home improvement, or our live show, check us out on YouTube.

Using stone wool like Roxul is a fast, effective fire block.

Split the insulation around the wires, don’t jam it in the stud bay.

The Roxul knife makes cutting it more like sawing wood than fighting with insulation fibers. Nice.

I find the best place to keep the knife is in a hunk of insulation. Always there when I need it for a no-look grab!

Mark

A licensed contractor, tool expert, wood and outdoor enthusiast, and elite Spartan Race competitor, he writes about home improvement and tools for national magazines and websites, and teaches hands-on clinics for other remodeling professionals. Check out his book, The Carpenter's Notebook.

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View Comments

Jordan says:

June 6, 2016 at 9:54 am

Thanks so much for these tips. Insulating your home is important, but it's even more important that you stay safe and make sure you can do it correctly.