So I spent all afternoon on my back. Installing insulation under the floors of my guest cottages.#TheSexyNeverStops
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) November 22, 2020
This tweet sums up my weekend pretty well. Though the walls of the guest cottages are thick, the floorboards are not; we therefore decided a layer of R30 fiberglass insulation was called for, and Jae found a good deal on enough to do the job. So a week or so ago I crawled under the cottages and attached the insulation; I finished all of one and about half of the other. Then on Saturday, I finished the rest of the insulation and attached a netting of chicken wire (with a layer of plastic sheeting above it) underneath the insulation to hold it in place and keep it from dropping as it has in several neglected houses I’ve seen. On Sunday, I followed with the wire net for the other cottage, but that was a piece of cake compared to the first day; since the ground slopes down to the east, there’s a lot more room under the eastern cottage than under the one closer to the main house. On Saturday, I came out from the basement not only tired, cramped and filthy, but sneezing out bits of fiberglass and with considerable debris in and around my eyes. A long, hot shower rectified most of that, but I knew I was going to be pretty badly bruised on my right side, where I had done most of my lying and creeping. While I was getting dressed the next morning, I tried to count the bruises, but lost count somewhere above 30, stretching in a long line from my shoulder all the way to my knee. But if this winter’s electric bills are lower than last winter’s, it will be worth it; the bruises aren’t nearly as painful as a $500 electric bill.