Ripped out a wall and found out my house has no insulation in that section...

I was tearing down a closet wall in my 1950s bungalow last Saturday to add shelving, and the whole cavity was just empty. Turns out builders back then only insulated exterior walls, not interior ones... I lost a whole day rethinking my plan and patching drywall. Has anyone else found weird surprises behind their walls?

2 comments

2 Comments

vera_palmer8d ago

Wait, you're telling me interior walls weren't always insulated? I used to think builders got everything right back then. Then I pulled open a wall to run some cables and found newspaper from 1952 stuffed in there as insulation. Crumbled to dust the second I touched it. Changed my whole view on old construction real quick. Now I expect the worst every time I open a wall.

nancythomas8d ago

My house was built in 1929 and I found old playing cards and a matchbook stuffed in the walls near the bathroom. It's like people back then just used whatever was lying around. Makes you wonder what other shortcuts they took that we're just now finding.