My husband is renovating our 40 year old bungalow's basement. At first, he put up vapor barrier on the concrete wall, then studded, insulated with R20 bat insulation, and put another vapor barrier. Someone told him that that was not right and he took down the 1st vapor barrier on the concrete wall. He will now have the concrete wall, studs and insulation and then vapor barrier. Is that the correct way? What about moisture barrier? up to the ground level?
Answer:
For all your sakes, I'm happy he took down the VB against the concrete. Had he left it in place, it would have become the worst condensation centre in the house. VB goes only on the heated side of insulation and only in a single layer - residentialy, there is no variation on that. As far as a moisture barrier goes, there was once a theory that tarpaper on the inside of a concrete wall would prevent that but we've been educated since then. If you want a moisture barrier, you have to have it on the outside of the concrete wall and that means quite a few hours on the banjo doing excavation. Even then it doesn't do enough for you to be worth the effort.
