House is 8 years old. The north wall is our master bathroom and closets. This part of the house is always considerably colder than the rest of the house. Is there a way to determine if insulation was placed before sheetrocking? My wife is not fond of the idea of me drilling holes in the sheetrock and taking a peek.

If there is an outlet or light switch on the wall you can remove the cover and try and see.

The problem is usually not enough insulation in the attic. Need at least 12 inches.

Worse comes to worse, you can crawl up in the attic and look down...or you could pull off a baseboard, cut a small piece of sheetrock and take a peek. Then put back the baseboard...just make sure you cut the hole to where it would be covered by the baseboard.

shut off the breaker to the room, pull a wall plug (cover and plug), drill a hole thru the side of the box. the box will be plastic and easy to drill and you only need a 3/8" hole.
that new you more than likely have insulation in the wall its the attic as stated that is chillin ya.
go up and see if you can see the joists, if so you don't have enough, 12-18" is the minimum for this climate (blown in). if you have batts of insulation then you need about 6-8" of blown in on top of that.

Go in the attic and drill a hole in the top plate. Also, like stated above, you need at least 12" in the attic.

I mention this because the walls next to the brick in the bathroom are colder than the other outside walls in the rest of the house. There are no outlets/switches on the north wall. When I got the Christmas decorations out of the attic, I crawled to the back of the house (as far as I could). The attic insulation over that side of the house looks the same as everywhere else.

I am going to hire someone to fix the large cracks in the sheetrock due to foundation problems. Will probably have them remove a section in the bathroom to have a look see. Just have to wait until my IRS refund check comes in next year.

If you drill a small hole in the sheetrock the bit will bring insulation out on it when you pull it out.
A small hole can be hidden easily with caulking. If you have a hole in the wall you can make a hook on the end of a piece of wire and insert it thru the hole. It will bring out insulation.
If neither of these work you have none......

Fishin' Nut,

You know I am a brick mason. I could remove all of the brick from the north wall for you. You would then be able to inspect for insulation. Probably cost less than $10,000.00

Seriously, the north end of our house is cold also. It is on the very end of the HVAC ducts. We use an electric heater on the very cold days.

Our master bedroom is also on the north side of the house - with a big double door out to the pool smack on the north wall.

We got a gas stove (like a wood-burning stove) installed and shut off the heat to the rest of the house when we go to bed. It has a multi-position remote control that the spousal unit guards with her life.

Comfy-cozy all night then we shut it off when we get up.

Don,

Don't laugh. I mowed the yard yesterday, as I was weed eating around the house, I looked at one of the windows at the rear of the house. There was a 1/2 gap between the window and the brick. Look up further, and the brick has separated a inch or more at the top of the house. Look like my Christmas present this year is to have my slab repaired, then call you to fix the bricks.

Right now, I "red necked" it and covered the areas with duct tape to keep this weekends rain out.

Solution is real simple. Just get one of those thermonmeters that the HVAC guys use. Northern tool has them. Shoot the wall in each stud bay. You might find some colder than others. Sheetrockers do not give a rat's behind about anything but getting the job done as fast as possible. If there is a piece of insulation missing or they knock one out it will be missing when the house is done. I learned my lesson. If you are building a house the day you definitely want to be present is when the sheetrockers are there. They cut wires, tv cables, and left at least 1 non-insulated bay on my last one. Also sheetrocked over a hunk of wood creating a bubble at the baseboard. They got to come back to fix that one.