Ready for Winter

We spent Saturday adding blown-in cellulose insulation to the attic - just in time because winter (or at least fall) arrived here overnight.  When we planned this project, the forecast called for a dry day in the mid-60s.  By Saturday morning when we woke up, it was barely in the 50s and raining hard.  Not exactly great weather for getting a big delivery of insulation and standing outside for hours running the blow-in machine.  We persevered, though, and got the job done.  We owe a big thanks to my colleague Dan, who swapped us his SUV for my car this weekend.  We could not have fit the insulation machine into the Mazda 3!

Blowing in the insulation was one of the easier tasks we've tackled skill-wise but it was tedious and took a long time.  We used GreenFiber insulation, which is environmentally friendly and not itchy though it is very, very dusty.  It really doesn't take anything more than time to feed the product into the machine and use the hose to place it where you want it and to whatever depth you choose.  Brian spent most of the day hunched over in the attic getting the insulation into place and I unpacked and fed 87 bags of insulation into the machine.  At nearly 20 pounds a bag, that's not too much under a ton of weight!  I'm giving myself a break from the gym for the couple of days as a reward.  We both ended up very dusty but the attic now has a nice thick layer of insulation throughout and we can start keeping the second floor climate-controlled.  Just one more step towards gaining some more (much needed) livable space!