We picked up the attic insulation blower on Saturday morning (we had tried to blow the insulation over the xmas holidays, and picked up the blower, brought it home, and spent an hour trying to get it to work. It was broken. So we took it back, and postponed the work for another day. Which wasn't such a bad thing, as it was 30 below outside, and probably about the same in the attic where Rob would be working). But this Saturday, it was only minus 3--perfect.
We got the machine put together, Rob went up in to the attic with the hose, and off we went. It took me awhile to get the hang of the blower. I cut the fibreglass insulation bags open (when you cut the bags, the contents are under so much pressure, that they explode open like the Pilsbury dough crescent rolls tube. They even formed a neat looking arch like an igloo--see pix below). I dumped in the contents--expecting the hopper to suck the fibre in. It doesn't do that. So then I tried placing clumps in, but you really have to push the fibre down--but avoid the blades! The blades grind the clumps of fibre into fluffy snow pieces. The first bag took half an hour. I was rushing to feed the hopper, grab handfuls of fibre, keep it off the floor, make sure there was a continuous flow of fibre threw the hose to Rob--I was run off my feet. Yikes. Have to pick up the pace as we have 20 bags to go through and at this rate, it will take all weekend! The second bag took 20 minutes. And finally I got into a rhythm and had a sterling pace of 13 minutes per bag. Rob would bang on the rafters if he needed me to stop the blower. I in turn would turn off the blower to indicate when I had finished a bag, as Rob had to gauge the placement of each bag quantity between all the rafters, to ensure even coverage all around. I thought the flow of fibre would come out like a stream of water from a fire hose, but Rob said it wasn't that fast or exciting. Darn. We got going and got 15 bags done in 5 1/2 hours and then stopped to take Rob out for birthday dinner. We had to rush to get cleaned up--covered in fibre clumps and fibre snow.
Fibre Sunday rolls around, and we finish up blowing the last five bags, then tweaking the lofts of fibre, then clean up. The machine dropped clumps of fibre around it and Rob would have fibre flakes fall from the ceiling--like it was snowing. Three hours later we were dropping the machine back off at Rona.
So that was a big chore out of the way. Next week, we get to poly and drywall the walls--then the garage will be super air tight and warm. The fun of Monster Garage just never ends!
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