This past weekend I re-insulated the attic of my house, and boy am I sore. My legs – especially the quads – feel like they’re on fire.
The job was much harder and more physically-demanding than I thought it would be, but I’m still glad I did it.
The unifinished attic had mostly blown-in fluffy-white insulation (with a bit of fiberglass batting). The roof doesn’t have much of a pitch, and at 6-feet tall I was only able to stand straight up in one place. When you work in an attic, you have to walk on the joists, not on the ceiling itself (or else you’ll fall through). But the existing insulation made it very hard to know where the joists were.
I’d bought 20 rolls of formaldehyde-free fiberglass insulation (rated R-11 for you insulation geeks out there). I used 14 of them. This should bring us to over R-50.
When I first got up into the attic and realized how hard it was going to be to move around and work, I got really discouraged and almost gave up. But I said a little prayer and asked my late Dad (a carpenter and builder) for some inspiration. And he came through for me, as he often does when I’m faced with a carpentry/construction problem. I realized I needed a long stick to lift/push the fiberglass batts into place under the low eaves. And it worked. Thanks, Dad!
Because I was working with insulation, I wore one of those white coverall suits, a hood, respirator, goggles and heavy gloves. My wife took a picture, which I may post later. The suit is part plastic, so I sweated like crazy. At the end of the first three hours, I was drenched in sweat. It felt like I’d sweated off a couple of pounds. I was about two-thirds done.
Saturday morning I woke up very sore – especially my legs. All the crawling and balancing on joists really worked me out – and let me know I’m out of shape. I went back up for another hour to finish the job. Not so bad this time because I was working in the areas with more headroom.
I had 6 rolls left over, which I took back on Sunday for a refund.
Looking back, re-insulating my attic was a hard job – one I maybe should have left to the professionals. But I’m glad I did it. My wife said she already feels warmer.
