I think it's clear that I'm the least handy of the Barry men or women. Maybe that's why I'm overly proud of last weekend's project. Sheila and I (but hey - it was mostly me!) insulated all (OK, almost all) the ductwork in our basement. It took about 16 hours total and it was very dirty work. 
One of the ducts even had a gap in it that I couldn't close, but I was able to triple-wrap in insulation. There was a lot of old tin up in the floor joists that was hard to deal with and I got a nice thin painful tin cut on my fingertip -- it's like a paper cut to the power of three. Very painful, especially when later in the night it was exposed to some high-grade gourmet salt.
Here are some photos to show you how authentic I am at this rehab type of stuff. Notice the cool headlamp that I borrowed from Erin, who used it on her dogsled trip. Also notice the risotto and sausages I made for dinner Sunday night after I finished the duct work.
And yes, the house is a little warmer and the basement a little colder.
3 comments:
Brian did a great job. Our house seems a bit warmer now. I'm contemplating having Brian insulate the ceiling between the joists in the basement. What else can we insulate?
Yes, that looks like an A-1 job, and the amount of time you spent sounds about right; I remember spending eight or 10 nights, maybe more, wrapping all the new copper pipes when we had the new system put in. And that wasn't even the whole basement, because I had done the rest of it years earlier.
So, good job!
But I wouldn't insulate between the floor joists quite yet. I'd start on the outside, above- and below-grade walls of the basement, which all the energy books say are huge heat-loss areas. That would make the basement less cold, and thus you don't necessarily need to insulate between the floor joists.
(The trick here is to do a little every year. I've been doing ours for 26 years now and it's a LOT better than that winter night in 81-82 when Brian was here, wrapped in a worn-out sleeping bag from the bike trip, with the wind blowing through the (second-floor) living room. Brrrr!)
Brian, you like a starving Irish coal-miner in that photo. Congrats on doing all that dirty work.
I'm hiring someone to redo my attic insulation -- it's been mostly destroyed by a combination of raccoons, electrical work, and kitchen remodeling. I'm having the old stuff removed and new insulation blown in.
I don't envy you all that crawling around, though I wish I had a basement that big.
Post a Comment