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.