Feel the Heat

I don't know what the codes were regarding attic insulation when our house was built in 1973, but I find it hard to believe that the codes called for, um, ZERO insulation back then. Okay, our house doesn't have zero insulation in the attic, but it might as well. The attic has 35-year-old cellulose blow-in insulation in it that doesn't even cover the 2x4 rafters. So, on a good day we have something along the lines of R-5 insulation up there. For reference, current code calls for R-49 in the attic. Because of this, the heatpump has been working overtime all winter (and the previous 35 winters before that I'd assume...). When the heater turns off, you can literally feel the heat moving upward and being sucked out of the house.

Since we're still waiting for the new flooring to arrive, we're taking care of some final projects that need to be addressed in the meantime. One of those projects is insulating the attic.

After doing some research about insulation options, we decided to go with the Owens-Corning AttiCat system. This is the one that you can rent at Home Depot. We originally were going to go with insulation that is made from recycled newspaper treated with a fire retardant since it's "green" and earth friendly and all that crap. But, after comparing the two, the paper-based insulation would have been a couple hundred dollars more expensive and weighed about twice as much as the fiberglass-based insulation.

So, this morning we went down to Home Depot and bought 23 packages of the AttiCat insulation and rented the special machine to blow it into the house. This stuff is pretty cool and it's really easy to do. All you do is plug in the machine and drag the hose up into the attic and have your lovely assistant (Sarah) feed the bricks of insulation into the machine. The bricks expand about 16 times in size when fed through the machine and then it pumps it through the hose and all you have to do is "spray" the insulation into the attic.

This was the attic before we started adding the extra insulation. The gray stuff on the bottom is the old insulation that's covered in 35 years of dust. It's maybe 3 inches thick.


And after two hours of crawling in the attic blowing insulation around, it looked like this:


It's kinda hard to tell when you compare the before and after pictures, but there's 18-24 inches of insulation filling the entire attic now, giving it an R-value of 50-60 or so (MUUUCH better!). The results could be felt right away. It's amazing how much warmer the house feels now and the heat has kicked on a lot less than usual this evening.

Another great thing about this product is the mess was pretty minimal. After blowing 2000 cubic feet of insulation into the attic, this was the mess that had to be cleaned up. And most of this mess was because I accidentally dropped the hose when it was on and blew a bunch of insulation around the place.


We should have done this months ago!

Happy Puppies

With the gorgeous weather we had this past weekend, we had to get out of the house for a change instead of spending all of our time working on it! So, Sarah and I met up with some of my car nerd friends and we went for a leisurely cruise up to Bellingham. Of course, I-5 isn't very leisurely or interesting, so we took the back roads there along Chuckanut Drive. It's a beautiful drive that takes you through La Connor (where the Tulip Festival is every year, the tulips were dead and gone by now though unfortunately), and through a few small towns and then along the water through some great twisty roads that invite a little "spirited driving."

Once we arrived in Bellingham, we all got lunch at the Weblocker Restaurant. Then, we went to Larrabee State Park to hang out on the beach for awhile before heading home.

Lucy and Leroy had a blast at the beach! We already knew Lucy loved the beach since she's been to a few of them now, but this was Leroy's first time playing in the sand and water and he loved it!

Leroy HATES getting baths, but when Lucy jumped in the water to chase a stick, he went in right after her without a second thought!

After swimming, they frollicked on the beach for a bit and helped themselves to a roll on a stranger's towels.


After that, they played some football with us guys.


And my friend Bird snapped a "fantastic" candid shot of Sarah and I:


(I can only assume I said or did something asinine just moments before this photo was taken...)

More work in the yard

While we're waiting for the new floors to arrive, I've turned my attention to the front yard. A few posts back, I updated you on the beginnings of that project. Since then, I've made a pretty decent amount of progress. The first part of the retaining wall is now complete and I've filled it in with about three cubic yards of dirt. I still need to bring in another yard or so of good topsoil to really level everything out before I lay down the new sod though.

Looking pretty good, huh?

Here's a good detail shot of the retaining wall. The black fabric you see along the top is a weed blocker that will help keep weeds from growing through the rock. It also helps keep the dirt from leaching out when it rains. It will be hidden once I lay the sod. I still need to pressure wash everything to get rid of the moss and dirt from the blocks. It will look pretty much new once I do that.


Talk about increased curb appeal! Can't wait until we can paint the place in a couple months.


While I'm talking about the yard, our neighbors across the street (Barry and Pat) deserve a huge THANK YOU. The entire transformation of the front yard has essentially been free for us since it just so happens that they were digging up and redoing their back yard at the same time we decided to tackle our front yard. All of the stones for the retaining wall came from their yard, as well as all the fill dirt I needed. We totally lucked out on this project!

Leroy had a bad day

Leroy had another round of shots on Friday morning at the vet. As usual, he was excited to go to the vet because all the girls there love him and he never misses an opportunity to say hi to people.

All went well at the vet so Sarah and Leroy went back home. However, a couple hours after they got home, Leroy developed an allergic reaction to his leptospirosis shot and his head started to swell up! And I don't mean it got a little inflated looking; poor Leroy looked like a bobble head doll! His neck also started to swell to the point he was having a hard time breathing, so Sarah quickly tossed him in the car and back to the vet they went!

Adding insult to injury, Sarah got pulled over on the way there. Not for speeding, but because she didn't have a front license plate on her car (my bad!). Luckily, the officer saw Leroy's giant head and let her off with a quick warning

Once at the vet, they shot Leroy full of steroids and Benadryl. The swelling stopped soon thereafter.

Leroy is doing much better now after a few days of rest and relaxation.

Not a happy puppy: