Fun In The Attic

I must be crazy. I mean, how else can you explain it? Fed up with an air conditioner that can never cool off the upstairs of our house, I finally did something about it. When my niece’s birthday party getting cancelled coincided with a cooler, overcast Saturday morning, I knew I had to act.

Whoever did the initial insulating of the house claimed to have put down over 12 inches of blown in insulation in the attic. I measured it myself and found it to be at a little over 6 inches! Insulation usually settles in time but not into half its original height! Judging by that and the fact that our home inspector discovered places in the attic not even covered by insulation, I decided the first guy never finished the job. It was time to lay another layer of insulation in the attic! Kelly agreed to take the kids to the museum while I went to Lowe’s to gather up materials.

I bought a car full of Cocoon blown-in insulation in one store, then drove 10 miles to another store to pick up a blower as the first store was out. I found it amusing that the folks behind the counter took 10 minutes trying to find the paperwork for the blower. Apparently they don’t loan them out too often.

I returned to the house with the materials about the time the family returned from the museum. After Kelly and I put the kids down for their naps, she joined me for the labor-intensive task of installing blown insulation. She would stand outside and feed insulation bags into the blower machine while I stood in the attic and spread the insulation from the hose.

Yes, I was headed for the attic in the heat of summer. That’s how nuts I am.

I brought with me a thermometer, a big thermos of icewater, a box fan, and a huge determination to get this done. The thermometer read a little over 100 degrees when I began around 2:30, by which time the sun soon came out and began cooking things. As I worked up there without the fan running (because it blew dust everywhere), the temperature leapt to 128 degrees! Turning on the fan rapidly cooled things off, if you can call it that. Within 2 minutes of running, the fan brought the temperature down to 120. After three hours up there I was almost used to it, to be honest. It reminded me of the time I spent in the Persian Gulf, one of the hottest places I’ve been.

I took frequent breaks and communicated with Kelly via cellphone whenever I needed the blower turned off. Things semeed to work fine until I reached for my phone only to realize its battery was now buried somewhere in the insulation! It was a needle in the haystack by that point. I consoled myself remembering it was on its last legs anyway and wouldn’t hold a charge.

While I was up there, I discoverd the attic fan I had installed (and almost lost a finger to) was mysteriously not working. I had sealed the outside of it with duct tape in an effort to improve its efficiency. I found the tape was hanging from the fan’s lifeless blades, one possible clue to its demise. I’m hoping it blew an internal fuse, rather than burn out the motor. There’s no way of knowing until I unscrew it from the wall and take it apart. After seeing what the box fan could do to cool the attic, a working attic fan must make a big difference, too.

I found another interesting thing when I reached down to adjust the supply duct for the upstairs air conditioning. Right where it bent to come into the attic, I felt a cold spot. In an attic heated to 125 degrees, one should not feel a cold spot on the outside of an insulated supply duct! Thinking the air was getting trapped at the turn, I twisted it a bit to clear the blockage. The cold spot seemed to go away and the air coming out of the upstairs registers began to feel a bit stronger.

Three hours and 15 bags later the attic insulation was four inches deeper. That brought it up from a value of R-19 to above R-30 – quite a difference! Not only that, but I was thrilled to see the air conditioner actually cooling the upstairs. My neighbors’ air conditioners were whining away while ours took a breather. Not bad for a humid day in the upper 90s!

And don’t think Kelly was just slouching around while I was in the hot attic. Though she was outside in the breeze, Kelly worked just as hard as I did, pouring 20-pound insulation bags into the hopper in the 100 degree sun. By the time we were done were both covered in cellulose dust and looked like we’d crawled out of a swamp somwhere. In spite of this we were happy. Well, at least I was happy. I had led Kelly to believe this was a 90 minute job when instead it took twice as long. She forgave me, though, and I certainly couldn’t have done it without her help.

Yeah, it was a lot of hot, sweaty work. Yeah, it was insane to try to do it on a hot summer’s day. But, it made a huge difference in our comfort and it only cost 120 bucks and three hours! Once that insulation is there it will always work for us. The upstairs not only is cooler, I swear it is quieter, too. The outside noise I took for granted is greatly reduced thanks to that new blanket of insulation.

If you’re looking to make a big impact on your home’s comfort and you don’t mind getting a little dirty in the process, consider putting in some blown-in insulation. For us it seems well worth it.