Adventures in Green Living

At least I didn’t get hurt this time…

Since I had vowed to not make my pregnant wife (it’s a boy by the way!), operate the insulation blowing machine again, I was working a couple different angles to call in some favors from the guys. Available choices were either a buddy of mine who’s a former home renovation contractor, OR, I could invite my 75 year old father and supervise him very closely. My dad, a retired surgeon, is the very definition of book smarts but no common sense. Despite this, I ended up asking my dad to do it – it makes him feel useful. Besides, if a pregnant woman can do it… (ha ha, just kidding ladies ;-))

I got the machine the night before and, besides a few last minute to-dos (like putting a new battery in the flashlight), I was all set to get an early start. My dad even showed up early, and he’s chronically late! I could really sense the tide turning in my favor.

I gave my Dad the only instructions he was going to need: peel the insulation off in 2-3 inch deep flakes. Stick these on the grill of the machine, and push them down with a poker. Don’t do too much at a time or it may clog, and definitely will create an even bigger mess.

Next I went to gather the insulation from my truck, the laundry room, and the basement. After falling through my ceiling on Father’s Day, I still had 14 bags left to blow into the attic, to get to my R-value of 38, or just over 10 inches of this stuff in my attic (you get 3.7 ‘R’ per inch with the recycled paper/cellulose insulation). I was on my way up to the front yard, carrying a bag up from the basement, when I came upon a comical, yet exasperating site: my dad was standing there poking the entire block of insulation that he had plopped on top of the machine. “Dad,” I said, “Did you not hear what I said about the flakes?” I pulled off most of the block, but what remained was a billowy pile of recycled paper, which, by the way, is about 99% dust, or so you’d think from the mess this stuff makes.

I did what I could to mix up the insulation, and got everything hooked up and ready to go. The machine blows pretty hard so I wasn’t that worried about it getting clogged. I climbed into the attic with my dust mask, goggles, flashlight, and 100 feet of insulation blower hose. This was my first time navigating the attic, after blowing 6 inches of the stuff on Father’s Day. Most of the rafters were covered so it’s even more treacherous to do the rafters balancing act. I quickly perfected the act of reaching out with a foot and clearing the insulation off each rafter to make the path visible. This was also the first time that I beheld my attic with the solid 6” of insulation, and I must say I felt proud, even giddy. There was a soft morning light filtering through the attic ventilation. It looked like fresh snow on a meadow – with all the little mounds where the plants are buried, except these mounds were rafters and other miscellaneous items that came with our 50 yr. old attic (like a framed picture of “The Kiss,” now with an R-Value of about 18).

I gave my Dad the agreed-upon sign: two quick tugs on the hose.

Nothing.

“Dad!” (tug tug)

Nothing.

“Hey Dad, turn on the machine!”

“Did you say turn on the machine?”

“Yes, turn on the machine!”

He’s a little hard of hearing.

I heard the whoosh of air and the sound of the insulation particles tumbling along the length of the hose. I positioned myself at the far end of the attic, holding onto a cross beam and leaning out with the hose positioned so that I would get the farthest, hard-to-reach corner. There was a puff of dust, followed by a few insulation particles that spilled out of the end of the hose, and that was it.

Furious at my dad for clogging the blower, I carefully made my way back to the drop-down attic stairs, climbed out of the attic, and, leaving a trail of dust on the living room rug, headed out the front door. I shut off the machine and took a few more turns stirring up the insulation, while my dad watched guiltily, also certain that he had clogged the machine. I pulled the base of the hose off, and turned the machine on. It blew for a sec, and then a big clot of insulation shot out over the front lawn.
Confident that I had unclogged the machine, I hooked it all back up and went back into the attic for another try.

Nada.

I went back to the attic entry, a little quicker this time, and back outside. Now thinking that the hose was probably clogged too, I pulled the entire 100’ length of the hose out of the attic, through the living room and into the front yard. I was seriously considering calling my buddy to see if he could still make it.

First I repeated the above-described procedure with the hose off, and again a big clump of insulation shot out onto my lawn. Next, I put the hose back on, put the other end in a trashcan, and blew all the insulation out of the hose. At this point the machine was empty, the chamber at the bottom was clear, and the hose was completely free of insulation. It had to work.

Up into the attic. Trickle of insulation. Light jog across the rafters. Entire hose back down. Dust. Clear all the insulation out of the machine & hose. More insulation on the lawn.

I looked into the cylindrical chamber at the bottom of the machine and saw something metallic. Fingers wouldn’t reach it. Pliers neither. So I thought: chopsticks! Bingo. I fished out a small, now twisted piece of metal that looked like a door hinge. I was just like MacGyver, but with less hair. OK, now the machine was unclogged AND I had found and eliminated the cause! I went back up into the attic with the hose, and for a moment I entered into a state of bliss. Insulation was coming out of the hose! Then it stopped. You might have noticed that I’m a determined SOB, but this was enough.

My Dad definitely agreed that it was time, relieved, as was I, that it wasn’t his fault. I took the machine back to Home Depot, and convinced them to not charge me for the $30 rental. In fact, they even agreed to not charge me the next time for all my troubles (with a little encouragement of course!). And there will be a next time. I must achieve R-38!

Earlier I wrote about my process to decide on which efficient shower head to buy. I installed it on 4/1/08, and have been tracking the impact both in terms of utility (Gas/Water) bill savings and also the environmental impact, i.e. the impact to the USAGE of the resource(s).

I was actually very pleasantly surprised when I crunched the numbers and found that the simple act of installing a water-efficient shower head made a significant measurable impact, both financially and environmentally: Read more »

Here are some pictures of the rain barrels I have around the house:

1. This is the first one I wrote about in an earlier article: Making a Rain Barrel:
Here’s where I used a hack saw to cut the downspout, so I could attach the flexible gutter spout:

Here’s a front shot:

Here’s a closeup of the spigot, which by the way is too small:

Finally, I attached an extra 2×4 to the front of the stand, hammered a couple heavy nails into it in order to hang a watering can (since the spigot is too small, the water flow is pretty light) while it fills up:

Quick followup to the last post about falling through my kitchen ceiling on Father’s Day while installing blown cellulose insulation into my attic.

I just wanted to say that after I fell through the ceiling, being only about 1/10th of the way through the job, I spent the next hour patching up the hole in the ceiling (see ceiling picture) and then went back up and blew insulation for another 2 hours in 120 degree heat (on Father’s Day!). I got it up to a pretty consistent 6 inches deep, which brings the R-Value (a measure of resistance to heat flow) to about 22-23 for my attic. I need to get up to an R-Value of 38, which is another 5-6 inches. That means the 6 inch rafters will be compeletely covered. This is important because the rafters, if left exposed, will heat up and radiate heat directly through the ceiling and into the house.

So I have a fun, and potentially adventurous, job left for another weekend. I think I’ll get a buddy to help stuff insulation into the machine, instead of my wife. See, who says you can’t be handy & sensitive!

I may be rethinking the title of this blog now, but you know what they say about watching out what you ask for! But they also say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I’m still here (just a little bruised…)

I had it all planned out. I spent a week or two researching different types of attic insulation, how to determine what to install and how much, etc. Look for another post that outlines the process for determining what kind and how much insulation to add to an attic of an existing home. Having a small amount of a combination of blown fiberglass and cellulose, I decided to add recycled paper/cellulose up to the DOE recommended level for my climate. Read more… Read more »