Xiaoniu 小妞

In pursuit of a comfortable, environmentally friendly and economic home we decided this time last year to purchase some insulation to bring our attic closer to what I would consider decent. Suddenly, summer arrived and then it was winter and a baby on the way. One year later the insulation made it all the way from Lowes, to the garage and then into the basement. A lot of good that was doing us down there. Thankfully, I was able to squeeze out the necessary time to finish preparing the attic for a huge addition of insulation.

About four weeks ago Mike helped me replace the existing rafter vents with longer ones. The original 24” long ones were too short. I pulled them out and installed new 4’ long ones. That gave me the room I needed. Next up was sealing all of the air leaks into the attic; light fixtures, fans and wiring. To ensure that the access “door” wasn’t going to be a place for transferring heat I added 4” of pink foam insulation to the back and sealed the edge with foam tape. Lastly and most involved was building a box to enclosed the access hole so that I could run the insulation right up to it without the insulation falling down into the house. Nothing majorly involved, but stuff that had to get done.

We took off Tuesday to do the nasty work. We had twenty bales (bags) of insulation already and I decided to pick up another 23 and the machine on Monday night. It may look like a lot, but trust me when I say that there is less there than it looks.

We got off to a rocky start in the morning while we figured out how to handle things. Sue was feeding the machine and I was handling the hose in the attic. The biggest problem was getting over the amount of dust that was produced in the attic. That certainly wasn’t mentioned in the brochure. I was prepared with a mask and goggles, but it was overwhelming at first. I figure out that the trick is to not wear glasses. They fog up too easy and it’s too difficult to see regardless. Soon enough we got the hang of it and work  was under way.

This is how things looked before I started. I put the measure strips in the day before and one day was enough to make them all droop. Notice the dust already dirtying the camera lense.

A shot of the front left corner of the house. My little friend shows up in the lower right of this photo.

The access hole box (one side slides in and out for easier access) and the insulated board that acts as the door.

And then the fun begins. The two following photos were taken after a good portion of the dust had already settled.

After laying down a whopping enough to bring the full insulation height to 18 inches it looked like a beautiful snowy landscape.

I took a lot of pleasure in closing up that damn attic. After spending nearly the entire day in it I was ready for a break. Sue had her fill as well. However, our work was not done. We had to clean up the mess that was made throughout the second floor of the house. Despite closing the door dust settled every where. The spare room was the worst hit, but no room in the house was spared.

This is to be expected:

This was not expected:

We spent another hour and half vacuuming, dusting and wiping up this crap with baby wipes (that work amazingly well). We’ll still have to give the room another cleaning, but it’s much better now. The yard needs a cleaning too. Lots of bits got scattered about while Sue filled the hopper. At one point the hose broke at a poorly repaired section and spewed insulation all over the place. Later on the line got stuck once and we spent a good 30 minutes cleaning the house out adding to the mess already on the ground. That mess will wait until Wednesday. No need to do work today that can be put off until tomorrow.

Remember how I said that I bought 20 and then another 23 bales of insulation? That was not enough. I bought another 23 bales and that was just enough. I could have put down a few more, but we just made it. A total of 66 bales in one little attic.

In the end I’m left very satisfied in that this big project is finally over with, but I’m also left hoping that it was all worth it. Adding it all up the expense was better than it could have been, but I’d like some return on this investment. I’d settle just for a more comfortable home, but being environmentally friendly would be nice and being cheaper to heat and cool would top it all. We have some hot days coming at the end of the week. With it cool now and quite warm later it is going to be a good test of the new insulation. In this situation the first floor is usually cool for days even when it is really hot, but the upstairs heats up quickly. If we’re lucky then the upstairs will not get as hot or even may stay cool. After a full summer and full winter we should see the difference.

Next up is finishing the insulating of the basement. I’m not talking about insulating the walls, just sealing up the windows and minor cracks that can let air into the basement. This only requires a few cans of spray insulation, a caulk gun and a couple hours of time. That will finish off the insulating of the house. Anything beyond this will require replacement of expensive items like windows. I may start on the downstairs bathroom too. it hasn’t worked in nearly 30 years. I think it is time to fix it.