Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Insulation

In the most recent episode of "Styling Home Repairs", our brave heroine learned how to insulate an attic. My friends N and S, who are teaching me home repair, had decided to insulate the ceiling of a bedroom. This room had been added on late in the house's history.  N and S were pretty sure that no insulation had been used, since the room was always colder than the rest of the house.

The first step was to gain access to the attic, which we did by sawing out a chunk of the drywall ceiling. I thought this was great fun - it's kind of amazing to me that when you're a homeowner you can cut a hole whenever you want. It's like doing amateur surgery on your house.

My friend N is not quite twice my size, so when we saw the attic, I volunteered to lay the insulation. At its tallest point, the attic was so small that I couldn't sit up in it. So I spent an hour lying face down on boards, scooting over the joists and trying not to break hole through the ceiling.

Luckily, I am not claustrophobic, and there did not appear to be many bugs in the attic. We laid blankets of the insulation, and just a few hours after we were done, you could already notice a difference in the temperature of the room below.

I can't wait to see what repair they schedule for next month's adventure.


6 comments:

Carissa said...

you are quite the adventurer!

de-I said...

Hoky Smoky, I'm so glad Wife fired me from home improvements so many years ago (I believe gross incompetence was the charge)

alexis said...

I am super impressed. First that your friends know how to do all this stuff. Second that you're learning all this stuff. :)

Gill - UK said...

You will be able to use these new skills when you get your own place - and of course there will be plenty of offers of help from your friends.

Mars Girl said...

Oh! I learned how to do this when I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in college. If you have time, you should try volunteering with them. You pick up all sorts of useful skills.

Natalie Baldwin said...

I’m glad you had a lot of fun doing the project! It can be quite exciting, especially since you were doing it for the first time. I hope you wore something to protect yourself, as the foam can be irritating to the skin. So, it's best to gear up properly when doing projects like these. Anyway, I hope everything else was in order. Cheers!

Natalie Baldwin @ EnviroTech Insulation