Continous insulation exterior details
user-1113272282
| Posted in General Questions on
Hi – got a house I am doing mineral wool board continuous insulation on. We need help on the exterior details – e.g, how to mount equipment, boxes, etc on the exterior. Have found various options for the easy stuff – exterior power outlets, water. But the devil is in the details – e.g A/C Disconnects, getting power lines into the house, etc. If we wall mount a heatpump, how best to do this over CI + finish the exterior. Does anyone have any guidance for where we can find details like that?
Thanks a lot! – Justin
GBA Detail Library
A collection of one thousand construction details organized by climate and house part
Search and download construction details
Replies
It’s best to not mount heat pumps directly on walls due to noise concerns. You’d be much better off mounting them on small stands on concrete pads.
A/C electrical disconnects can mount easily enough on a piece of wood or sufficient size framed as “hard point”. Think of this as one of the furring strips being extra wide and thick enough to come up to the level of the exterior siding. You then flash and trim this piece similar to something like a door or window. All you need is a secure mounting point. You can do the same for overhead electrical services, which usually can’t be buried in the framing per code, but I’d try to use an underground service which will be easier to bring into the structure, and better aesthetically as well.
You’re not the first to ask about this, so I’d try searching he GBA Q+A archives for more info.
Bill
Have considered the noise concerns for wall mounting. There are a few decisions for going with this approach however.
Thinking about the continuous insulation as the same as direct mounting to sheathing, but with furring strips attached with exterior #10 screws through to studs. We'll have stucco on top of the mineral wool CI, so we can treat the boundary around the furring strips just as you normally would with stucco.