Bob: This is how I started the clean-up project up here. What it took was: lights, buckets, a long board to sit/stand/lie on, dust mask, gloves, knee pads, a few tools for doing things like pulling out old nails here and there, and a propensity to get REALLY dirty! Sifting through old dust and construction scrap is not easy.
As you can see, the first step is to decontaminate the area. That's not as hard as it looks, but definitely not easy: lots of debris from boards all the way down to little splinters, and, although most of it is laying on the top of the insulation, I found lots of places where gobs of debris had been buried under layers of overturned insulation, leaving me with multiple strata to be discovered and cleaned. So how do I get it out? The same way they get the pits out of Sunsweet prunes: I pick 'em out! Bit by splinter, into construction buckets, and down to the awaiting trash bags...
Nan: It looked like Bob had been digging in a coal mine when he came out. He was black
from head to toe, and if he had a dust mask on, I was hard pressed to tell it by the
looks of his face. I don't know how he breathed while doing all that.
Bob: This shows a good comparison between the dirty and the clean insulation, after picking everything out of it I could: chunks of tarpaper, splintered sheathing, bits of ceramic, just about anything else I could sift out with my unbare hands. Tools weren't much of a help doing this, as I had to feel the bits down where I couldn't see much. After pulling out all I could, I then backfilled towards the outer walls, leaving gaps toward the middle, which I later filled by migrating cardboard from one end of the attic to the other.
Nan: It was worse than it sounds; he worked his behind off doing this.
Bob: This is the section over the upstairs bathroom and sewing room, after being cleaned and backfilled from the other end of the attic. There's still lots to do here, but it's encouraging that it could look this much better.
Nan: Without these pictures, I'd never know what it looks like up there, now or before.
Bob: I was cleaning next to the chimney by the entry hatch when I spotted this paper cluster pushed in beside the bricks. When I pulled it out, this is what I found! I'll let Nan tell you what they are:
Nan: When I was a child, the Guernsey Milk and Ice Cream Company stood on the corner of Elm and Meridian Streets. It had an ice cream parlor in the front that served the best ice cream in the world. Here is a link to a picture and a short write-up about them (#27 on page 2). There are also many other companies that used to be here in town, on that site. Some I remember, and some were way before my time (Yes, even as old as I am, they were long gone before I came around!). Some of the old buildings still stand, which makes our town a nice place, historically.
I ate many cones, dishes, and pint cartons of ice cream from there. These spoons were the spoons that came with the dishes and pint boxes. Imagine my delight that some were tucked away in our attic. I could smell and taste that ice cream when Bob showed me this hidden treasure.
Bob: I was amazed I didn't stumble across more goodies buried in the debris
up here. Oh, I found minor things, like a bag of cable staples, and a pile of 50 or 60
brand new roofing nails, obviously a dropped handful, but this was the best find.
Bob: These are some of the joist pockets over the bedroom that got emptied to fill
in over the bathroom. When all was shuffled to and fro, I had over 100 linear feet of
pocket to fill back in. I plan to use R-19 fiberglass (five inches thick) to top them off.
Nan: Oh, we should wash his mouth out! :)
Bob: Some of these joist pockets ended up filled on one side, but not on the other,
so I made little dams out of thin plywood to hold back the gray matter. It's really just
a convenience for when I start shoving the fiberglass down into the pockets.
Bob: Things were going swimmingly, until I lost my balance! Imagine my big foot stuck in here...oh well, I guess it was inevitable that I'd punch a hole in the ceiling at some point. I'm just glad it was one of the empty joist pockets. This will require a little R & D to patch it back up.
Thirteen eight-foot pockets need new fiberglass insulation to top them off to five inches deep (R-19). Then everything gets another ten inches, running crosswise (R-30, makes a total of R-49). There are 512 square feet to cover (not including the one I stuck through here!).
Nan: I was downstairs in the computer room when I heard the commotion. It sounded like he fell
through the attic entrance to the floor in the sewing room. It scared the bejeebers outta me!
Fortunately he only broke the ceiling in the bedroom, not his leg or worse, his neck. That is
my white feather comforter peeking back at us. It will definately need cleaning before storing
for the summer.
Bob: "When you're up to your ears in alligators, it's difficult to remember that your original intention was to drain the swamp."
Nan: Big Foot lives! He left his footprint on my bedroom ceiling.
Bob: Gee, the last thing I remember, I was insulating the attic. Well, no mind. Upper left here is the hole with the original lath spliced back in. If they hadn't cut two out of the three laths I stepped on, I might not have gone through. Upper right is my paper pattern, taped into place for dramatic effect (like I need that!) Bottom left shows patch and pattern together. Bottom right is my patch, made from the back of a cheap old breakfront we found in the alley two years ago. (Note standard part number stenciled on...)
(Amateur Photoshop effects by Bob.)
Bob: As the excursion into the attic insulation project continues, nothing beats filling in all the details you need, like running new power and coax for the bathroom TV. Here, I'm fishing wires up from the water heater closet off the long room. The coax actually originates over MusiCom in the dining room and will be used to transport the secondary tuner signal from the downstairs Dish DVR up and throughout the second floor.
Nan: I have only ever fished in a stream, river, lake or the Gulf of Mexico. Never in my attic! Wonder how big a fish one could catch with a line that size?
Bob: I caught wires...
Bob: These utility boxes will hold the power and coax terminations for the bathroom TV. I used measurements from the bathroom ceiling to figure out where I would place them, then drilled down from the ceiling to find the edge nearest the joist, and marked the others accordingly. The plan is to slave this power off the vanity light circuit in the bathroom, which needs considerable rerouting itself to accomodate the new vanity shelf unit and lights.
Nan: I'll really be happy for Bob when all this work in the attic is done. He's worked so hard on this.
Bob: I'll be glad too, Nan. We're really living in dust up on the second floor right now.
Bob: Here's a piece of advice: when cutting holes in your ceiling with a jigsaw, cut
the dependent end of the lath FIRST! Here, I, of course, cut both holes along the joist
(the independent end) before cutting the near sides. This caused the jigsaw blade to grab
onto the lath and shake the plaster loose. The hole on the right fared better, and will
need little patching to look just fine, the one on the left needs a big chunk of sheetrock
and considerably more attention.
Bob: Rolls of R-19 insulation, waiting patiently to be poked into joist pockets. It was not very easy to get these through the entry hatch to the attic; it seems it was JUST big enough to accomodate them, with no slack room. That, and the hatch was built centered under a joist, so each roll traversed a tight crooked path to get up here. Originally, I was going to buy R-30 insulation (the second layer) in two-by-four foot bats, and would've had to repackage it in garbage bags in order to get it up through the hatch, but fortunately, the fifteen-inch rolled R-30 became available at a considerably lower price, and is no bigger than the R-19 you see here, so I won't have to work quite so hard.
Nan: We've finally bought all the insulation we need to finish this job. Won't it be wonderful when it's all laid out and looking cool? (Or WARM in the winter?)
Bob: To be continued...