Our home is 25 years old and this year we did a significant remodel of our kitchen (Suzanne is now the happiest woman in the world!). In the process we noticed our attic insulation (blown in fibreglass) was sketchy in many places and was due for an upgrade to help combat our ever increasing electric bill. "One of these days I'll get around to it", I thought.
A couple of weeks ago I had Friday off work and around mid-morning I thought I'd swing by Home Depot and do some investigative work on attic insluation. For one thing, I wanted to know if this could be a DIY project, or one I should hire out, and what the cost might be. A helpful employee there explained the options and instilled confidence that I could do the job myself in 90 minutes. Whoa! He also showed me a website to apply for an energy credit that would cover most of my cost. Bonus!
I quickly rearranged my busy calendar for the day (which consisted of calling Suzanne and bagging our lunch date, and recruiting her as helper) and got right to it. The project juices were flowing, and there is nothing like the immediate satisfaction of finishing the same day.
Buying all the stuff, renting the blower, transporting all to my house, and doing prep work in the attic probably consumed three hours, so I was already double the estimated project duration and hadn't blown in an ounce of material yet. But once that started things went very smoothly. It was a strange sensation up in the attic with flashlights, goggles and mask, and insulation material blowing out 10 or 15 feet from the hose. As the material trickled down in the darkness I had the definite sensation of being outside during an evening snowfall. So it was rather soothing in that respect. Suzanne and Daniel kept at work down below stuffing each of the 15 insulation bags into the blower. After about two hours we finished, packed everything up, returned the rented blower, ate a late dinner, and took great satisfaction in completing the project ourselves, one that was still some indeterminate time in the future only that morning.
We spent $400 on materials, the rental was free (with insulation purchase), and the energy credit figures to be $325. This project may pay for itself in one winter. I like it!
A couple of weeks ago I had Friday off work and around mid-morning I thought I'd swing by Home Depot and do some investigative work on attic insluation. For one thing, I wanted to know if this could be a DIY project, or one I should hire out, and what the cost might be. A helpful employee there explained the options and instilled confidence that I could do the job myself in 90 minutes. Whoa! He also showed me a website to apply for an energy credit that would cover most of my cost. Bonus!
I quickly rearranged my busy calendar for the day (which consisted of calling Suzanne and bagging our lunch date, and recruiting her as helper) and got right to it. The project juices were flowing, and there is nothing like the immediate satisfaction of finishing the same day.
Buying all the stuff, renting the blower, transporting all to my house, and doing prep work in the attic probably consumed three hours, so I was already double the estimated project duration and hadn't blown in an ounce of material yet. But once that started things went very smoothly. It was a strange sensation up in the attic with flashlights, goggles and mask, and insulation material blowing out 10 or 15 feet from the hose. As the material trickled down in the darkness I had the definite sensation of being outside during an evening snowfall. So it was rather soothing in that respect. Suzanne and Daniel kept at work down below stuffing each of the 15 insulation bags into the blower. After about two hours we finished, packed everything up, returned the rented blower, ate a late dinner, and took great satisfaction in completing the project ourselves, one that was still some indeterminate time in the future only that morning.
We spent $400 on materials, the rental was free (with insulation purchase), and the energy credit figures to be $325. This project may pay for itself in one winter. I like it!
Wow, impressive! I like the photo. Except for the high-tech machinery, it looks like it could have been taken in 1986 (hi Mom!).
ReplyDeleteActually, I'm vintage 1984--we got that Sequent shirt the first summer we lived here. And check out my blog for another version of the same project.
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