Let There be (a Velux 10") Light (Tube)

A few months ago, I picked up a Velux 10" light tube for our hallway. The hall has no windows, and since we usually keep our bedroom doors closed to keep the pets out, it's always dark. Even during the brightest part of the day we can't see if there are any dog toys on the floor. It's a painful problem - guess how I know this. Below is what it has looked like without the light turned on. Pardon the blury picture, the camera didn't like trying to get a pic in this low of light.




Step one of the install was determining where we were going to put the light tube. I cleared away what little insulation we have and marked the hole. I had to offset it slightly to make room for existing electrical wiring. Pay no attention to the crappy light fixture. It'll be replaced when we get around to renovating the hallway.




My biggest concern with this job was cutting a hole in my brand new roof. The flashing process is straight forward, but it's still a bit unnerving cutting a hole in the roof in an area which up until now has been watertight. In this picture, you can see the trim ring which is visible in the hallway and the polished tube connections at both ends. These ends rotate allowing you to line them up. In between will be a straight tube of polished metal.




From the outside, the light tube is pretty low-profile. Instead of using the standard felt that the instructions call for to help create a water-shed under the shingles, I used some left-over ice & water dam from the re-roofing. This material is thicker and has a sticky back. As you stick nails through it, it seals around the nails. From the road, this dome doesn't stand out anywhere near as much as I thought it would. Normally I would have put this on the back side of the house, but there wasn't enough open space due to a roof vent and plumbing vent. On the plus side of having it on the front of the house, it's got a southern exposure so the light tube brings in more light.




Once it was done, it brought in as much light as I had hoped. Here's the hallway with all lights turned off and no flash on the camera. Still not enough light in the camera's opinion, but good enough for me. Now we really get a good look at the crappy skid-mark brown carpet. The project took about 4 hours, and wasn't nearly as difficult as I had expected it to be.

Note to Self

Old unfaced insulation itches like a mo-fo. The carpet is out of the attic, but I'll come back in a few days to remove the excess planking. It looks to be only held in with 1-2 nails per 4' length. Hopefully the Benadryl kicks in soon.

Aww, Hell No.

I started removing carpet from my attic this afternoon, since it is in the mid 70's outside and it should be tolerable if I run a box-fan to get the hot air out of the attic. I knew there was some planking in the attic, but with the carpet in place I couldn't get a good idea as to what was there. I removed one large piece of carpet and found that the PO planked a LOT more of the attic than I had expected. Plus, the planks had no spacing between them for me to check the depth of the existing insulation. I'm working on the assumption that the area between the joists under the planking is fully insulated, but I think I'm going to have to pull up a lot of the planks just to make sure. Plus, I need to install some recessed lighting in the kitchen and wouldn't be able to easily run the wiring if I leave the planks in place. I'm not really looking forward to this, but if the attic is cooled off a lot tonight it shouldn't take more than an hour to get most of the planks removed, along with the carpet. I do plan on leaving a small section of planking to get from one end of the house to the other, but since I'm not going to store anything in there other than insulation, the excess has got to go. There is about 4' of clearance between the plans and the peak of the roof. Being 6'3", I'm expecting this little adventure to suck.




By the way, the PO did have a nice way to get into the attic without going through the living area in the house. There is an access hatch in the wall of the garage. I'm not sure how safe it is as far as fire barriers go, but it's handy for getting crap (carpet and padding, for instance) in and out of the attic. There was a pulley attached to the rafters in the garage, so I just attached a small rope and it worked like a charm. Here, I've got a fan running to force as much hot air out as possible before I spend any quality time with the planks and insulation.




Hey Nate, here's your shed. I even left all the original nails in the wood for you. UPS didn't want to come pick it up for you for some reason. So much for "What can Brown do for you?"...

WTF Moment of the Day

Alright, so the roof is done (except for cleanup, which will probably go on for a couple of weeks - yay...). Just in time, as we're getting some of the only rain we've seen in over a month. Not hard rain, but enough to wet things down a bit. I figure it's a good time to check things out in the attic, although a real hard-rain would be the best trial-by-fire for it. Below is typical of the 45 year old decking - nice and solid. I didn't mention it before, but there was absolutely no rot or noticeable water damage found during the roofing.




The previous owners, who had lived here at least 30 years, installed some wood decking which goes from the opening into the attic all the way to the garage where there is an access hatch as well. You can barely see it on the wall to the left. This is the first time I got a look into the attic and it was "interesting". I had wondered about the venting and where the stove and bathroom vents exited the house, which I now know. That's not what was "interesting", though. The "insulation" is what I'm referring to.




I don't know if it's "Yankee Ingenuity", just plain cheap, or the first signs of Alzheimer's, but the previous owners used old carpet and padding as insulation. Seriously, WTF?!? Over the living room is this egg-crate style padding surrounded by REAL pink insulation. Yeah, that'll work well.




Even higher on the Lame-o-Meter is this old carpet and pad which matches the carpet in the hallway and the bedroom we tore carpet out of. What I really like is how it has compressed the real insulation, thus ruining what little R-value it originally had. Most of the attic has at most 6-8" of insulation, nowhere near enough for Wisconsin. I had planned to blow in some insulation this fall, but didn't know I was going to have to remove carpeting from my freaking attic before I did so.



Before anybody asks, my home inspector did mention carpeting in the attic, but I thought me meant that they rolled some up and stored it in the attic, not that they actually tried to use it for insulation. I did look briefly while he was up there checking out the decking, but I didn't want to climb up there as I was still in my work clothes. I'm really interested in seeing how much easier the house is to heat & cool once this is done correctly. I'll have to check out the venting around the soffits when I do this to help the airflow. That should be loads of fun, so I'll wait until cool weather before I do it.