Week 51 (Joe)

Insulation just doesn’t seem like it would be that exciting, does it? But to us, it is! It is a huge job that gets us one big step closer to drywall.  As a reminder, our house had no insulation anywhere.  As tempting as it might have been to save money by doing the bare minimum, we decided to spend a little extra to make sure we maxed out this opportunity.   This job used a little fiberglass, some open-cell spray foam, and a lot of closed-cell spray foam. It was costly! It will end up being our 2nd biggest expense. Most of that is due to the closed-cell spray foam we needed to use on the 2nd floor ceilings. It was necessary to use that type of insulation because of the limited depth available between the roof and the drywall and the fact that we are essentially locating 3 bedrooms and a bathroom in an ATTIC!

The kitchen walls got a skim-coat of the closed-cell spray foam to help seal it, then it will also get fiberglass.

The roof of the kitchen got open-cell foam. In fact, it got A LOT of it because they had to just burn up the rest of what they had.  The open-cell is not as dense so it requires much more depth to achieve the same R value as the closed-cell.  This is fine in the kitchen because there is a lot of dead space above the ceiling.

Take a look at this view from above the kitchen ceiling….

All the exterior plaster walls had fiberglass insulation blown into the wall cavity.  This is great for efficiency, not so great for the two DIYers who will be repairing the plaster.

They drilled 3 holes for each wall cavity.  One high, middle, and low.

They also used the open-cell foam in between all the floor joists, including the basement.

When we first saw the insulation on the 2nd floor they hadn’t finished shaving off the excess foam, the floor was covered in hardened foam shavings, and they hadn’t taken down the protective plastic that was covering windows and doorways.  It resembled an alien home…  or an explosion of the biggest container of cool whip ever!

These pictures are after everything was mostly cleaned up.  What you see in the pictures is closed cell spray foam.

The plaster walls of the master bedroom were also drilled and filled with fiberglass.  Portions of the wall were filled from above.

The house is already so much brighter because of the insulation.  We can’t wait to see what it looks like with actual drywall.

We had a great experience with this contractor.  His communication and availability were awesome.  He got the job done in a timely manner and did everything he said he was going to do…  and even a little more.

The drywall is scheduled to begin on Tuesday!  We just had another weekend of frantic preparation.  More on that topic in the next post…