Wall Shield Selection

when they say “not recommended for below grade applications” they mean not buried in the dirt. You’re fine to put it on the inside of a dry concrete wall.

The scary part is that this stuff is super flammable and makes toxic death smoke.

 

When our house was built the framers squirted bottles of spray foam insulation down the open cores of the 12" block that weren't filled with re-bar / concrete before the sill plates were put on. I'm thinking that only went about 4 block down into the cores. Since we have a walk-out (day-light) basement the insulating contractor that came later then insulated all the block that would be exposed on the exterior. They drilled holes in the mortar joints at 5, 7, and 9 blocks down from the top and filled the block cores with spray foam insulation. Then they mixed some mortar and filled those holes back in and struck the joints again. To be honest, I'm not sure how effective this is overall since the concrete filled cores and webs of the block still transfer heat unobstructed from interior to exterior. It does eliminate the open air cores. I'm sure this helps some but to me it's kind of like buying a bilge pump instead of fixing the hole in the boat.

On the below grade portions of the basement wall, I would have preferred 2" of insulating sheet on the exterior and then the drainage panels that they installed. They insisted that the drainage panels were very effective and helped insulate, but I insisted that they backfill with gravel to within a foot of the surface. They were OK with that since I had a mountain of gravel already on site. I was somewhat skeptical of the drainage boards being of any real insulation value and it looked like the clay / soil would migrate into the structure of it within a couple years. That's why I wanted the gravel put in. They would not put landscape fabric in either and they wouldn't let me within 50' of the track hoe while they were working although the kid running it could have held the kleenex for you with it while you blew your nose. He was GOOD.

 

Our location puts us smack in the middle between two Menards stores (16 miles one way, 19 miles the other). The first one had opened the summer we were building the house and I quickly became a fan. Their pricing here locally has migrated up over the years so they are more "competitive" now, but I'm still finding myself going there 1st for almost all my construction needs. I have a buddy that works at Lowe's and although he's not happy about it, he understands.

 

For me, its not just about pricing and selection, although that's a big part too...but 99% of the time, customer service is very poor at bLowe's...and at Menards it's been good 99% of the time...that's enough to keep me going back.
I've had exactly ONE time at bLowe's where I had exceptional CS...that was at our local store's grand re-opening, and I've never seen that ole fellah since...there have been a few times where CS was perfectly acceptable...but all too often it was really poor...that's why I refer to them as bLowe's now...that, and I'm always disappointed by their selection, compared to Menards.
Sorry RB, didn't mean to turn this into a hardware/BB store war story thread...

 

They make insulation specifically for filling blocks with under several different brand names.