On Saturday, I climbed up into the attic to install the first soffit extender to get a feel for what I was going to need. It quickly became very obvious that I did not have enough in the way of safety equipment. A quick trip to the store and then I was ready to really get started on my work. Here is a quick run down of the safety precautions that I took while I was insulating my attic:
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One of the things that worked out really well for me while doing work up in the attic was buying a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood and cutting it into 4 pieces that were 4′ x 2′ in size. I had a bunch of smaller boards that I could balance myself on between the joists, and those were handy and easier to move around than the larger boards. Unfortunately, they do not work very well when you need to lie down safely, because putting too much weight to one side or another could roll you right through your ceiling.

Having the 4′ x 2′ boards let me set up platforms for myself, which especially helped with installing the soffit extensions and the insulations under the edge of the roof. Putting out the insulation in the middle was better served with the smaller boards, though, because I needed to move around a lot quicker than the large boards really allowed.

Another advantage to the large boards was that I could leave them on top of the insulation after I was done. I now have a walkway that reaches all the way to the edge of the house; I will either need to move them or buy another sheet of plywood to easily get to the other end. Since I do not have any need to be at the other end in the near future I am not too worried about that. It did make it easy to do some work on the hose from my bathroom vent.

This weekend I installed raft-r-mate soffit extenders in my attic, and then doubled the existing insulation. I currently had insulation installed between the joists, but I wanted to make sure that I got the most for my heating oil dollars this winter. Between being sick and getting ready for a marathon, I did not have time until this weekend to take care of this project. Thankfully, I did not have anything else that I needed to get done this weekend; it took me a while to get everything done.

Yesterday, I went to Home Depot to get everything that I needed. I wound up having to make 3 trips in total (2 trips, plus I turned around and went back a third time when I was 3/4 of the way home when I realized I forgot something), and rather than having more than I needed of everything I wound up having not enough.
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