Air Sealing and Finishing Top of Exterior Wall
pablov
| Posted in General Questions on
Any ideas on how to air seal and finish the top of this wall?
This is an exterior wall in a daylight basement that has a 3 ft concrete ledge. See photo attached of similar example.
When the room was remodeled (before I bought the house) the contractors decided to reframe a wall to cover the concrete ledge. However the top of the wall was never finished. The concrete ledge was insulated with rigid foam and on top of that fiberglass was used as you can see in the pictures.
I do not intend on finishing the ceiling in this room (8 ft ceilings) so my main concerns are regarding air sealing and finishing the top of the wall.
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Replies
I’d probably use a pine baseboard above what appears to be an exposed footing under the drywall. If you want to air seal there, you could caulk a small piece of trim like a 3/4” square piece to the footing such that it would be behind the baseboard, then caulk the baseboard to both that small trim piece and the drywall itself. I’m not sure that’s really necessary though, especially if there is rigid foam against the foundaiton wall behind the drywall.
The top part is trickier. You’ll probably need to pop off that upper trim piece to see what you need to seal together. You appear to have a tongue and groove ceiling here, which tend to be very leaky, so I assume you want to see the wall and/or what I assume is a rim joist area behind that trim piece? If it’s just a rim joist in there you can seal it the usual way. If it’s something else, a drawing would be helpful.
Bill
Hey Bill, thank you for your feedback! The air sealing part seems very easy to do and along the lines of what I was thinking on doing.
I think I'll forgo finishing the top of the for the time being.