I'll admit he's got a point, and boy, oh boy, did I show him this past weekend. Yup. I spent Saturday insulating my crawl space. Can't get much better than that. (Can I????)
It was AWFULLY warm here in Kansas City, and I definitely didn't want to work outside, so I turned my attention to my list of inside to-dos. The oldest item on the list was insulating the crawl space under my no-longer-new addition. I've had all the piece parts I need to do the project for months (the original plan was to do it last winter), so there was no excuse there.
I still didn't want to do it. But, sometimes, you just gotta buckle down and do something, and so I did.
I got out my handy-dandy kitchen stool and crawled up into the opening, glad I'd been doing situps for these past few months. (It took some core strength to get across the lip of the old windowsill.) As I shimmied in, I had my eyes peeled for spiders and other small residents, but found no evidence they lived there, to my surprise. Guess there's not much to eat, even for a bug, in the space.
Encouraged, I took some measurements, wriggled my way back out, and spent about thirty minutes making little foam boards out of big foam boards.I tossed the boards back into the hole, grabbed some Liquid Nails and started to put the foam into place. Now, I can't remember who told me to use Liquid Nails to hold the foam in place, but they obviously never tried it with any size piece at all, because it didn't work. It would hold for just a moment, and then the piece would plop back down. I didn't let this deter me. I just started making little braces out of the extra foam I'd helpfully brought along with me, and wedged it into place.
Went back out, and got the expandy-foam-stuff to spray along the edges and in the cracks. It's fun to spray that stuff and watch it work, but boy is it a mess if it doesn't get where it belongs. It sticks to EVERYTHING. Fortunately, I'd learned this from past experience and (mostly) managed to avoid getting it on my skin. As a bonus, I'm pretty sure, between the wedges and the expanding foam, my work will stay in place. (When that stuff hardens, it STICKS!)
As I worked, the air grew stiller; I figured it was a good way to know I would see some benefit from my efforts. Three hours later, (covered in rock dust, which sticks very effectively to sweat, in case anyone needed to know) I was done. I have an impressive set of bruises on my knees and left butt cheek (who knew I lean more to one side than the other?) from spending too much time crawling around on the gravel, but they're victory bruises. Received in the line of duty.
When I got back to my list, I checked off "insulate the crawl space" with extra relish. Added an extra check mark just because I could.
Who needs a party to feel good?
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