Our house is old and no insulation except for the attic. My hope is to find a way to insulate my kitchen cabinets which are on the outside walls. I can feel the cold air when the cabinet doors are open and every piece of cookware, glassware, and dinnerware is cold. Everything I've googled references to installing insulation to attics, garages, basements, etc. I have thought about putting up some heavy duty plastic outside for the lower part but no idea for the upper cabinets. Does any of this sound effective? Open to suggestions. Thank you.
Depending on how much room you have in your cabinets, maybe some cut sheets of styrofoam placed in the back part of your cabinets?
You could have a pro blow insulation into the outside walls. See if Ohio or your utility has any advice. They might have a consultant service that is free and there might even be funds to subsidize the improvements. Here is a place to start: https://development.ohio.gov/individual/energy-assistance/6-home-weatherization-assistance-program
I was gonna recommend this, except that they make 4'x8' sheets of styrofoam insulation. It's very light and easy to work with. The price depends on the "R Value" you get. Each "R Value" is a different thickness. You'll want to seal the borders with foil duct tape (not the fiber stuff): Here's the Lowe's page for the different insulating boards. Here's the Lowe's page for the foil tape. I'd start with Don's suggestion to see if you can get free assistance to do it professionally.
I do have a couple of Lowe's gift cards. I'll wait to see what once I check out the @Don Alaska's links.
My house is poorly insulated. I used the styrofoam board and foil tape to make an Attic Insulating Box to put over my attic stairs. The difference is HUGE. I went from having to get up in the middle of the night to re-stoke my wood stove to having my house stay heated thru the night, no matter how cold it's gotten outside. I think we discussed this before. Your attic access is in a closet or something. Anyway, that's all I used: styrofoam board and foil tape. The stuff works.
I opted for a "hot roof" over part of my attic. It isn't really a hot roof, since there is a space between the sheeting and the insulation but it is only 1 1/2 inches. It is a trick I learned from a professional builder. A sheet of foam board is placed allowing an airflow space next to the sheeting, then fiberglass is over that. I put another vapor barrier (although the sheet of foam also serves that purpose) on top of the fiberglass batting. This is not over my entire roof but helps keep the part of the attic we use for storage a bit warmer. Getting stuff out of storage when the storage space is -40 is not pleasant.
I've been reading that insurance companies are refusing to insure homes that have the spray-on foam on the inside of the roof because it can cause problems and can hide roof leaks and other defects.
I don't think I would use it on a roof, but I might use it on exterior walls. The biggest use I have seen for it here is on the inside of metal buildings. I insulates and keeps condensation from dripping in the interior.
Our house was built in 1910 and, as I learned, parts of the house had been insulated with newspapers, which had long ago crumbled and fallen to the bottom. However, we found a program through an organization designed to help elderly people who referred us to a federal program designed to reduce oil usage, which was not income-based, which paid to have someone insulate all of the exterior walls of our house, as well as the attic, using blown-in insulation. It cut our heating oil usage from about five tanks per year to two, in combination with a heat pump, which the program also paid for. They drilled holes from the interior, along a horizontal plane, so that they could access each of the spaces between the studs with the hose used to blow in the insulation, then covered the holes with a board that covered the width of the wall. If we didn't like the board, we could have simply repaired the holes that were drilled in the wall, but the boards give us places to attach things so we're okay with that. I don't know if this is a federal program that's still available though, since some of them are temporary things, nor do I know the name of the program, since the agency on aging set it up for us. However, I do know that it wasn't based on income, as there were no financial questions. While I think it's possible to rent the machines that blow the insulation in, I'd check first to see what the price difference would be between renting the machines and buying the insulation and paying someone else to do it.
Dam* Trump probably won't cover that program like the Dems would. We have a lot of programs in Wisconsin. It is finding them that is the problem. Government passes laws and then does not tell anybody about the incidentals. I will say that our little ranch house 1800 sq ft cost more to heat than this newer huge house we have now with the sidewalls, attic and foundation insulated when built. And we had foam sprayed into the ranch walls by 'professionals' but back then, the foam was different and shrunk over time. When looking into it for the barn house, I noted there were two types of foam. Check into stuff carefully. Foam is really expensive now. It was pricey even if we did it ourselves.
Some of the organizations listed at the bottom of the page might be able to help. The one that referred us to this program was a state chapter of the National Council on Aging. While programs may come and go, I assume that each state has a chapter. Again, it wasn't the Council on Aging that insulated our home and bought us a heat pump, but they made the referral. I don't remember the name of the organization that provided it, but their goal, as I understand it, was to reduce the amount of heating oil that is used, and not specifically to help poor people or even elderly people.