Insulating Fairhaven.
Locals just call it the Village. If you've wandered the bookshops on Harris Avenue or grabbed a coffee near the Colophon, you know Fairhaven's character comes from its 1890s to 1920s homes. The trouble for a homeowner is that a lot of those homes were balloon-framed with no wall insulation at all, so the walls are empty cavities that run straight from the crawlspace up to the attic. You feel it as cold rooms, drafts around the outlets, and a furnace that never stops.
Those open balloon-framed walls are exactly what dense-pack is for. We drill and pack each cavity completely full of cellulose, which stops the air moving up through the wall as well as slowing the heat loss, no tearing out the original siding or plaster. Down below, the crawlspaces here sit close to the waterfront and stay damp, so we lay a ground vapor barrier and insulate the floor. Marine air and ground moisture are constant in the Village, so we get the moisture control right first, then insulate to code.
What we see on Fairhaven homes.
Common home styles
1890s to 1920s homes, with often empty, balloon-framed. Damp crawlspaces, marine air are the moisture issues we run into most here.
Popular jobs
Dense-pack wall insulation, crawlspace floor insulation and vapor barrier, air sealing are the recurring work on Fairhaven homes, matched to the housing stock and the moisture.
Moisture & prep considerations
Like everywhere in Bellingham, we air-seal and get the moisture under control before we insulate. In Fairhaven that means paying close attention to damp crawlspaces, marine air, then insulating to current WA energy code.