Wandering Road

On Saturday morning, Bobby and I were up at 6:30 am to do work in the attic.  Our electric bill has been outrageously high this summer and I thought it was time to do something about it.  After a little net research (is there really any other kind of research?), I found two great docs on repairing a leaky attic and sealing ducts.  On Friday I took a 20 minute “stroll” through the attic to asses what things in the doc applied to our attic.  A quick trip to Home Depot (oh how I love living 3 minutes from it) and I had my supplies.

Saturday morning we were up before the sun to beat the summer heat.  The attic was hot, but not unbearable.  Bobby was in charge of putting mastic on the areas where the vents go out of the furnace or a junction box.  I was in charge of adding extra insulation to knee walls and caulking/foaming around pipes and vents in the ceiling.  Surprisingly, it only took us 2 hours to do it all.  And more surprisingly, we didn’t leave any leg size holes in our ceiling!

I went up in the attic this week and checked the difference.  You can definitely feel the difference around the vent connections.  Before you could feel air blowing out, but now there is nothing.  Plus, Bobby and I both swear that the air coming out of the vents in the house is colder and stronger.  The true test will be when we get the next electric bill.  My fingers are crossed.

Oh, I did find two more spots in the attic that need to be plugged.  I’ll be doing that this weekend.  Luckily, both spots are small and in a very accessible area (ie I don’t have to go crawling through insulation and balance on the edge of 2×4’s).  Now I just have to decide what I want to do with all the money we save.  What can you buy for 2 pennies these days?

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