When we moved into the new house, I knew that we needed more
insulation in the attic. There was around 8-10 inches of blow-in
insulation in the attic. Definitely not enough. Knowing how terrible
this job is (I did it at the old house), I put it off for two years.
Finally, it was time.
With Thanksgiving, I was off for
the last five days. If I picked up the insulation machine on Wednesday,
then I would get to keep it until Friday instead of the normal 24 hours
(Lowe's was closed on Thursday).
I did some prep work on the attic on Wednesday morning. There were several things to do:
1.
I had to move the existing insulation to the outer parts of the attic.
With the blow in machine, if you're not careful, you can cover up the
soffit vent and block airflow in the attic. My way of combating this is
to pile the existing insulation carefully up to the soffits, but not
block them. Then I can blow the new insulation right up against that
pile.
2. I used expanding foam to fill any gaps or holes in the drywall (wires, fans, etc). I ended up using 6 cans.
3.
There was a 2x4 walkway along the length of the attic. It sat right on
top of the ceiling boards. Since I would be blowing in 20-24 inches of
insulation, I needed to raise this. So, I cut all the wood and built
the walkway up 12 more inches. This will allow me to access most any
place in the attic without disturbing more insulation than necessary.
I
wasn't quite sure how long this would all take. So, I went to get the
machine. I also bought 50 bags of insulation. I thought this would be a
good start, although I wasn't quite sure it would be enough.
Without
getting into details, checking out the machine was a NIGHTMARE. Out of
the 10 Lowe's people I worked with throughout this ordeal, only ONE new
what he was talking about. Only 15 bags fit in the car at a time, so I
had to make four trips to get it all home.
I got half
of the attic finished with the prep work, and wanted to start blowing
some of it in the attic. Only problem? The machine wouldn't work! It
was so frustrating. We had it all ready, dragged the hose up to the
attic, moved bags of insulation, and it didn't work. I initially
thought the hose was clogged. Cleaning it out took 20 minutes. Still
didn't work. We had already put a bag of insulation in the machine, but
I was starting to suspect that was the problem. So, I had to empty out
the machine (another 30 minutes). Then I found the problem (or so I
thought). The bottom was completely matted down insulation. Spent
another 20 minutes cleaning that out.
Then it seemed to
be working better. So, we got all set up again (another 15 minutes).
Still didn't work. Argh. The hose was clogged again. Got everything
down and taken apart again. You have no idea how frustrating it is to
spend so much time just getting it set up, getting all the gear on,
getting the kids set, etc just to not have the machine work. So, I got
out of the attic again and cleared out the hose again. Looked at the
machine, and it was gunked up again too. Spent an hour cleaning the two
things out. This time I tried to get every last bit of insulation out
of the machine. It was awful. By this point, we had insulation all
over our front porch. We had two trashcans full of insulation that
should have been in the attic by now.
This took us in
to Thanksgiving day. We messed with it a while longer and then went to
Thanksgiving dinner. I was cautiously optimistic that it was fixed,
but wouldn't find out until the next day.
The next
morning, we went at it again. Got the kids in front of the TV, got all
dressed, got everything out and the hose to the attic. Again, got about
two tiny pieces of insulation in the attic, and the hose clogged.
Argh. Spent another hour cleaning out the hose and machine.
I
decided to call Lowe's to see if they had any solutions. By this
point, I had already spent at least 5 hours cleaning out the machine.
The guy who answered kept calling me "boss." I was already angry, and
he wasn't helping. I asked if there were any things that typically go
wrong that I should check for. He responded "do you smell a belt
burning, boss?" I replied "no" and instantly knew he had no idea what
he was talking about. This machine doesn't even have a belt on it!
Argh. Strike another one up to useless help from Lowe's. I asked if
anyone has ever had a problem with this machine before. He said, "No,
boss." STOP CALLING ME BOSS! This guy clearly had no clue.
So
I called my dad. They were going to be taking the kids overnight on
Friday. They came over and dad felt the air blowing out of the
machine. He didn't think the airflow was fast enough. So, we started
taking the air blower out. We expected it to be all gunked up with
insulation, but it wasn't. Then we noticed the problem. The air intake
for that was completely clogged. There is a metal screen that keeps
the insulation out of the blower. It was caked with at least 1/2 inch
of dust. This was the reason for the clogging. The air wasn't blowing
hard enough to blow the insulation through. We cleaned off the screen
and FINALLY it was working.
And the "boss" dude can't
convince me that no one has ever had a problem with this machine
before. That screen clogged two more times just in our use of the
machine. In addition, the machine was clogged when we got it. So,
clearly the previous user had issues as well.
Long
story short, Peggy and I spent the rest of the afternoon blowing
insulation into the attic. We went through all of the 50 bags. Peggy
did a great job loading the machine. Unfortunately for her, she thought
we were almost done at the end of the 50 bags. After the 50 bags, I
was only a little over half done with the attic. So, we went up to
Lowe's to get more bags. Yeah, this is how we spend our time without
kids (which is a VERY rare thing!) We got 59 more bags (one less so
Peggy could fit in the car on the way home :-) We had less than an hour
to get ready and get to dinner with our friends.
We
got up Saturday morning and got to the insulation early. We ended up
blowing around 24 inches into the attic. That should settle to around
20 inches, giving us a nice greater than R-60 rating.
The piece of wood you see sticking out is the corner of the new walkway. It is about 18 inches above the top of the drywall.
I NEVER want to do that project again and we're VERY happy that it's done!
