Last weekend I installed soffit extenders and increased the insulation in my attic. The first quarter or so of the house took me a long time. I had gotten a pretty good system by then, though, and was able to do the next third to a half of the house much quicker. Then I found an even better way to install them. I will lead you through the process.
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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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A couple of years ago I ran the San Antonio Marathon; between getting up at 3:30am, running a marathon, going to a hockey game, partying all night, and finally getting to bed around 1am the next day I did not even need the fleas that infested where I was staying to get me sick. That was the 3rd day of a 10 day vacation and a (basically) 3 month illness.
This year, I got sick after running the New York City Marathon. This time, though, I did not get sick until a day after I got home. I only missed one day of work, but I decided against climbing up into the ceiling to insulate the attic this year.
At least being home I can take things much easier than when I was in Texas. The cat has loved having me lay around immobile, at least.
I have not yet purchased the insulation for my attic. It was raining too hard this weekend, and I am supposed to be tapering for a marathon, so I decided to wait for a few weeks before I purchased it. One of my concerns about buying a lot of insulation at once was that there was no way I would get it home in one trip. I have a pickup truck, but insulation can take up a lot of space (hence the point of having it) and a small Ranger just will not cut it. There is a solution, though!
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You can get a tax credit for insulating your attic. I am in the process right now of deciding how much insulation I need, how I am going to get it up into the attic in the first place, and whether it will qualify for a rebate and a tax credit.
As far as I can tell, the IRS is allowing a 10% tax rebate on any improvements that improve the energy efficiency in your house. That includes insulating your attic and walls to a minimum standard. You have from the beginning of this year until the end of next year to make the improvements, and can get up to a $500 rebate. You do not have to claim it all in one year, but the amount that you can claim is cumulative over the two years and you have to claim the rebate(s) in the year that you make the improvement.
This is a great program, in my mind. You are saving money and not wasting as much energy by making your home more efficient, and you get a rebate at the same time. My trick now is just figuring out how much I need, getting a good price on it, and finding out how to get it home since I certainly can not fit all that insulation in my truck in one trip. I currently have 6 inches of insulation between the joist in my attic; my plan is to put another 6 inches lengthwise over the joists.
The vent is now wired and working! Not being comfortable with the wiring of the vent ourselves, my uncle and I installed it but did not hook it up. Tonight I had the electrician that does all of electrical work at my place employment come out and hook things up. His son in law came with him, which made the work go relatively quickly and I did not have to do too much.
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This morning, my uncle and I installed a new vent in the bathroom. The one that I wanted to put in was out of stock at Home Depot, so I got one at Lowes that pushes a little bit more air and is a tiny bit louder. Our priorities for what we wanted (in order of importance) were:
Having a few runners in the family, we can sometimes wind up with a clogged toilet. It seems to happen more frequently now that we have our own house than it did when we were in the apartment, but that is probably a function of the toilet being pink. I’m not really sure though.
Tonight, I could not get the toilet unclogged. Normally, I just take the plunger to it, and in 5 minutes to a half hour I will usually have everything working normally. Plungers are very easy tools to use. You cover the hold at the bottom of the tank with the bottom of the plunger, and then you just push it in and let it pop back out until you unclog it or until the water level in your toilet gets so low that that it does not create a seal around the plunger. In that case, you can dump more water in or try flushing to see whether it will work or not (and fill your bowl up with water to try some more if it did not work.)
Tonight, that just was not enough. A trip to Home Depot and we now have a toilet auger. Basically, it a plastic tube shaped so that you can get the cable up into your sewage line. You just push the cable through the tube and rotate the handle to dislodge whatever is clogging up the works. Then you carefully pull it back out and everything works the way it is supposed to. Just be careful not to scratch your toilet bowl.
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