Monday, November 17, 2008

We started insulating today...

I made a trip to South Pittsburg, Tennessee (about 25 miles down the mountain towards Chattanooga) this morning to check on some wood that I may use in our shower surround (I have a friend that used teak wood in her shower and it is BEAUTIFUL ...and functional with 3 coats of marine grade polyurethane to shed the water). I need something that looks "brown" and "woody" to match the brown garden tub. My goal is to make it look like I chose the brown color of the garden tub instead of just using what I got for FREE on CraigsList (shhhhh, don't tell anybody, okay!).
On the way back I got a call from John Fitsimmons, the cellulose insulating guy. He said he could be at the house in 20 minutes and was ready to insulate. I hurried home and he was unloading his equipment. Within 20 more minutes he was spraying the dampened (sticky) cellulose into the 2" X 6" South stud wall... what a MESS (but he cleaned up as he progressed):His helper kept the machine full of cellulose for the sprayer and then "shaved" off the excess so the insulation was flush with the studs:When John finished the South wall, he went up into the attic and began filling between the ceiling joists with 11" of the dry (VERY fluffy) cellulose:John ran out of cellulose and had a dinner engagement at 7 PM so he has to come back tomorrow morning to finish the job.I continued my research today on cellulose and further confirmed that I made the right decision in choosing cellulose over fiberglass. Cellulose has a higher sustainable R value than fiberglass (fiberglass actually loses R value as it gets colder while cellulose increases in R value) and seals the building significantly better against air infiltration than bats of fiberglass. I read in several places online that my energy (heating/cooling) costs will be approximately 40% less with cellulose. We're gonna be snug as bugs in a rug!

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