Insulation
DIY Blown In Cellulose
May/13/08 08:50 AM
This past weekend I finished up the last major portion of the insulation. With a little help from my neighbor and the insulation blower that he had laying around in his garage, we knocked it out in about 4 hours. Although, half of the time was spent setting up the equipment and half of the rest of the time was spent standing around BSing, about how Roger inherited the insulation blower from the Mayor.
Anyway, This part of the job was so easy that I can’t believe that people actually get paid for this! And really overall, I probably spent about $150 on this project, minus what it would have cost me to rent the blower, which I believe runs about $50 a day. I think a few years ago it would have been much cheaper, but the one thing we can thank the “green movement” for is that any material that can be labeled as “green” can be charged double. I joke with Kristin that it’s called a “green” product, because it takes so much “green” to purchase it.
So here’s a few tips on how to do it.
- -It is a two person job for sure a feeder and a spreader.
- -Check local building code and see how many inches you need.
- -Carry a poker stick the depth that you will need for quick measuring (it gets deep and it’s too dusty to judge accurately)
- -Use a good dust mask and don’t be afraid to stop occasionally and let the dust settle.
- -Try doing it on a day with a lot of humidity (After a hard rain) this cuts down on the dust.
- -Work out a signal system with the feeder, on-off-on-off to let them know there is a problem, should one arise.
- -Start at the farthest point from the blower and work back towards it.
I don’t claim to be a “expert” but feel free to email me any questions you have about how to do it.
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The Orange Foam Incident
Apr/01/08 08:25 AM
Last night was our final run through before the dry wall goes up (being installed as I write this). So we scrambled around until about 1:00 in the morning finishing up all the little details. One of which was, using orange fire-foam to seal off the range hood vent pipe in the attic (which is a fire retardant foam related to Great Stuff foam).
So I gathered up all of the tools that I would need and climbed into the attic from the second floor. From there I sealed myself in with the foam backer board, and Kristin put up the insulation behind that. I would go out the gable vent that I had removed the cover from and placed a ladder to previously.
I trimmed the duct and used the foam to seal the gaps around the duct and the roof vent... This is where it all went horribly awry. “After I sealed the duct I thought, gee I have all this extra. I will seal the duct at the ceiling.” So I bent down and finished off the rest of the can, and at that precise moment I felt a strange “KER-PLOP” right in the middle of my back. Yes, somehow the foam managed to unstick itself from the vent and fall off... onto me. Well, fortunately, not all of the foam fell on me; some, in fact, fell onto the board I was kneeling on. In the process of fussing with the huge blob of orange foam on my back, I managed to plant my knee smack dab into the middle of the blob on the board. This would have been fine had I not been wearing jeans that I had recently ripped the knee out of, the foam squished inside my pant leg.
After a stream of curses, that would have made the burliest of sailors tell me to watch my mouth, I came to realize that if I didn’t reseal the vent above me I would have to come back up here and do it all over again. But I was out of foam... “Wait, there is a huge blob right in front of me.” So I used the closest tool I could find to reapply the blob of foam... my bare hand. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I now know differently. Once it was on my hand it started spreading like a highly infectious disease. It was then on my other hand, on my tools, my clothes; and on top of all of that, the rock-wool insulation from the attic was getting mixed up in it. At this point I realized that I needed to abandon ship before I was permanently encased in orange foam in my attic. I stood up as best I could and hastily made my way to the vent opening and on my way I slipped on the ceiling joist that I was traversing and fell across the other joists (If I’d slipped in orange foam, I would not be surprised). I now have a 2X4 shaped bruise across my ass and side. Kristin came running outside to see if I was OK and honestly, my pride seemed to be hurt worse than anything. I threw the tools out and climbed down the ladder. As I climbed down, I noticed that every step was accentuated with the ripping of the dried foam that was tangled in the hairs surrounding my kneecap. Kristin got a fresh shirt for me to change into and we sat down to read the empty foam canister on what to do in case of skin contact. To my horror, the can said: DO NOT apply a solvent. It said to apply mineral oil and that EVENTUALLY it would wear off...ugh.
I managed to get an exacto blade and “shave” off most of the foam around my kneecap, but no amount of Gojo or scrubbing seems to make any difference to the foam on my hands.
DIY Spray Foam Insulation
Mar/28/08 08:23 AM
Yesterday I did what I would classify as both the coolest thing and the most frustrating thing that I have done in a long time.
There is just something inherently interesting about spray foam insulation. Being an artist, I could play with a can of that stuff for hours. Anyway, try 2 cans as big as propane tanks. Talk about cool!
The frustration stems from my own skill, or lack there of, to apply it evenly. That and the god-awful mess it made. In fact it was making such a mess that I don’t think that Kristin could bear to watch, so she went home.
During a meeting with the architect, we had expressed interest in using spray-foam insulation between the ceiling joists above the stairwell. Us, not knowing that it would be waaaay expensive to pay to have it done, Bret suggested that we try and do it ourselves. He recommended several companies that manufacture the foam. A few clicks on ebay and a coupla weeks later I had the goods.
We have been waiting for a good 70º day to use the foam, as per the manufacturers suggestion. Yesterday was that day. I got up at 3:30 am, went to work at 5:00 am so I could leave work early and spray the foam. Ok so maybe I was a little tired, when I began. But I unpacked the canisters and shook them up and then called Bret because he wanted to see the installation. I think it may have been his own curious fascination with foam, either that or like a criminal that feels guilty, he wanted to stand trial in case anything went awry.
The installation went as follows:
- 1.I unpacked and shook up the canisters, by rolling them around on the floor.
- 2.I placed the canisters in a central location, since they are heavy buggers. Also if you stop for more than 30 seconds to move the canisters, you have to change the tip on the gun. (This was stressful and made me rush the job.)
- 3.I spent ten to fifteen minutes looking for the right sized wrench to attach the hoses, not realizing that they provided a wrench in the kit. Then I hooked up the first hose to the “A” canister and the second hose to the “B” canister and opened both valves.
- 4.I started on the ceiling in the stairwell and worked my way up. This stuff was raining down like a blizzard. BUT DAMN IT WAS COOL!
- 5.I made sure to hit all the important areas first so that any thing I had left would just be gravy.
- 6.After I hit the stairwell I hit the ceiling in the dormer bathroom. Taking time to carefully cover our new clawfoot tub beforehand.
- 7.After that I just went until I ran out, which happened when I had only about 6 feet left to go from doing the entire upstairs. I think, however, that batts will suffice in those areas.
Overall, I’m not even really sure if I did it correctly, but Bret seemed to think I did. I would recommend this project to any of you DIYers considering something similar; because, quite frankly, it was fun.
Afterwards I went out to the bar for boy’s night, and I have to say it was a great conversation center-piece (Although in typical boy’s night fashion, the conversation quickly degraded into the fact that I was using a big hose attached to 2 canisters). Anyway...
If I could do it over, there are two things I would have done differently. First, I would have covered the floors, and second, I would have worn a hat...
Insulation Installation
Mar/25/08 08:21 AM
We have begun the installation of our insulation, and it has gone surprisingly quick. Kristin has shown a surprising aptitude for this aspect of the project, so much so that it seems I’m the one asking, “Ok, what do we do next?”
I hung the foam baker board in the upstairs attic areas while Kristin hung most of the batts. We started downstairs and worked our way up. We were told that you are supposed to overlap the edges of the batts, but in an old house like ours, we were lucky to get one to overlap. I think at this point we are going to have to tape them or something.
Kristin hung the batts and I followed behind stapling them with the hammer stapler. While I was hanging the foam board in the attic Kristin got ahead of me, so I thought Sunday morning I would get up at 6:30 and go to the house and get caught up on the stapling while Kristin slept in. (For those of you who don’t know, our other house is just 4 doors down.) Anyway, I was at the house and I was rolling, I mean I was a stapling machine, Until...
I stapled my left middle finger to the wall. First of all, it’s a lot like smashing your finger with a hammer, but add on top of that two small puncture wounds. What you get is something very ^*%#ing painful! It would be all fine and dandy if my instinct was to leave my finger in place and remove the staple from my finger and the wall, but that was not the case. Nope, ripping my finger away as quickly as possible ruled out, thus adding to the injury. I quickly decided the only thing that would ease the pain was sympathy from my wife, so I headed out the door. A trail of tools and protective gear followed me, first I ditched the stapler that had turned on me like a pet snake. Then it was the one glove on the hand that got stapled, then the dust mask, and as I got to the door, for some strange reason I thought that I should leave the other glove because I knew it was best not to split them up. So I dropped the other glove. I would reckon that a good detective could have followed the trail from the door and surmised that I had indeed done something stupid.
I rambled into the house being sure to make enough noise to wake up my wife. It was great, I got hot tea and breakfast made for me. Some morbid part of me thought “Gee, I should smash my finger more often.”