Wood Frame Construction
 

I hear you but, in So. Cal. a brick house or cinder blocks is dangerous IMO ~ fairly expen$ive to heat / cool too .

That's a good point, I remember refri's etc having big capacitors on their electric motors for starting up long ago, I have no idea what's in there nowadays .

If the damned termites in my dump ever stop holding hands it'll collapse on me .

Yes, wood framed houses have their own special set of challenges. My house happens to have lousy insulation which has resulted in some fairly high heating and cooling bills......

Many older homes have little if any insulation .

I discovered that placing and exhaust fan in the service porch drew out all the radiant heat from the refrigerator before it spreads through the rest of the house .

I tend to leave this big box fan on most of the year .

Due to a water leak, I've had the dry wall taken down which revealed pink fiberglass insulation. IMHO, pink fiberglass insulation is near worthless.....

Insulation
 

It depends on the R rating .

I lived in many places with zero insulation, that's really bad .

In New Hampshire we opened a wall and found crumpled news papers stuffed in for insulation .

Creating dead air spaces is how any insulation works .

Cellulose insulation, the termites love it .

I did not know termites love cellulite insulation...... on another note, I keep hearing companies advertise blown in cell foam insulation.....I figure they have to either drill holes in the sheet rock to install it or drill holes in the outside of the house to install it......

either way there would be holes to patch.....

Insulation
 

As it was explained to me, cellulose insulation is a processed wood product .

The primary problem with blown in insulation is those pesky diagonal and horizontal cross pieces of wood .

The blown in deal : they blow it in from the top and so it cannot possibly fill the entire wall due to those horizontals and diagonals, too bad for you .

In the 1960's I worked on a construction crew and asked about this , they told me good construction lays in insulation before the sheet rock goes up .

That crew didn't bother with any insulation so that building, a three story combination school, dining hall and residential building was freezing cold all Winter long ~ this was in rural New Hampshire right next to a lake .

It wasn't drafty but it was like a meat locker .

Just like Mechanics, some do things properly but many don't as it saves time and $, no one can see your bad works, you just suffer whilst the builders go cash their checks and live in far better housing .

One more reason why I like living in California ~

Gotta say, there is a lot to like about California weather. Perhaps the nicest weather in the country for sure. There are so many different parts of California that are very interesting......

I always liked the San Diego area although housing prices have gone way too north for me to be able to afford......I also have wanted to visit the MB Classic center for a long time.......

Years back, some friends and myself rented a cabin in the mountains outside of Fresno. It was so peaceful and quiet we didn't want to leave.... We got up early in the morning and had coffee then went out for some very scenic walks.....it really is like another world; so different from the big cities!

I guess I appreciate the more magical parts of California, always have and always will.......

Where To Live / Retire
 

Norteh Arizona is nice as is Northern New Mexico and wide swaths of Nevada .

There are lots of nice towns in mid to Northern California but the taxes are high and way too many people here these days .

I liked the San Diego area but never enough to want to live there .

I also like Montana, Wyoming and parts of Colorado , here and there all around the U.S. of A. I have found nice little towns but I settled here and hope to die here .

It's the price of real estate and total cost of living in California that is keeping many people out. I figure at some point I'll hop in the car and go see a few of the sights that I remember. I never made it to the red wood forest or napa valley so that might be on the to do list....

My father spent 14 years in California. Well before it developed into what it is today. In his teens and twenties.

California is a BIG state in terms of land mass. I lived there for several years and traveled the state both by air and by car quite a lot. Even then, I probably only saw about 10 percent of it. Prior to the 1960s, it was MAGIC. I really liked Sea World, Disneyland, the La Brea tar pits, LAX, Ontario airport, the Beverly Hills Hilton, Beverly Hills women, Big Bear Mountain, the mountains around Fresno, San Francisco was just OK. All the Southern California beaches were and I'm sure are still GREAT!

Cellulose insulation is typically an insect inhibitor. Boron and other additives are used to resist fire, insects, dust, etc...

It can act to reduce the air flow through fiberglass insulation if blown in as a top layer.

https://www.attainablehome.com/cellulose-insulation-pros-and-cons/

https://cellulose.org/Cellulose-Insulation-2nd.php?pagename=DispellingMyths&dirname=HomeOwners

My choice for insulation is ' rock wool '.

https://www.jay-k.com/10-benefits-of-rockwool-insulation/

California Coast & Redwood Forests
 

Husky Man ~ do your self a favor before you get too old ~ take a few days and drive up the coast via PCH going North out of Sta Barbera ~ in time you'll reach the redwoods and can stop and walk around, it's really impressive .

The beaches in So. Cal. are very nice but I used to work in the Hyperion Sewage plant, DO NOT touch the ocean water anywhere South of Malibu ! :eek:

It sounds like the cellulose insulation has been improved .

I'll stick with the pink stuff .