Insulation for the Frozen North

So a polite way to have referred to the quality of warmth at my house previous to last week would have been "Thread Bare." So I did something about that, having owned the house for ten years and knowing for about five that I had virtually no insulation in the exterior walls.

I have a green dash stucco home that I did not want to poke holes in and patch after the insulating was finished. You don't match that very easily after 75 years of sun, rain and winter...the green is different than it once was! (And I don't like the look of those dolka dots on the outside of retro-insulated stucco houses.

The other thing is, those of you who know about insulating a house by hand know that you need a great deal of free time, some muscle power and a goodly amount of cashola...


Okay, so after the estimate and the go-ahead, they (the contractors I found through the Center for Energy and Environment ) wrap up all your stuff in the middle of the floor, or against interior walls so that they can bring in a bunch of tubing to blow recycled newspaper treated with cellulose in order to achieve 3.7 R Factor per inch - totalling nearly 15 R in my walls now. (That, for all you viewers in TV land, is pretty darn toasty as far as holding in the warm air that I'm paying for!)

So they drill three inch holes in the walls between each stud and blow in the insulating material, then they patch the holes up and leave the house - all in one day. My house cost me $1490 (which was EXACTLY what they estimated it at, I might add) and...well, did I say I'm toasty warm now? Maybe I didn't mention that part.) I can feel a big difference already.

After a day of vaccuming, mopping and dusting, all I have to do now is prime and paint the patched bits of the walls and you'll never know the difference! (Except that my teeth won't be chattering when I'm hanging out...)