My wife put it best by saying, “that’s not a fun way to spend money!”
I wholeheartedly agreed…at first.
We’re homeowners just like you and we’re on a budget. We have a long list of things we’d love to do, but we’re only able to knock them out one-by-one. We live in a well-loved, recently renovated, ranch-style home built in 1962 and will celebrate our five-year-home anniversary next March. Recently, Team Murray undertook an attic insulation upgrade project in order to keep us warm, save on energy costs, and to put off replacing our windows for another year.
After spending some “fun” money finishing our basement and working on our curb appeal, we knew it was time to tackle some of the “un-fun” ways to spend money on our house. We decided on a blown-in, fire-retardant cellulose insulation at a R-49 level since none of our attic space was being used for storage. This stuff can’t catch fire even though it looks like ground up newspaper. Going with the blown-in process was an easy decision because (right or wrong) we really didn’t want to rip out all of the existing insulation. We simply wanted to beef up what was already there and get some uniform energy efficiency. We had noticed there were some rooms that felt colder than others and the time had (finally) come to get this done. You can see why below.
As you can see, we had little to no insulation keeping our home “warm” and efficient. Apparently, and I can attest to this, our homes lose more heat vertically than horizontally. It makes sense. Still doesn’t make it “fun” though.
The upgrade installation process took less than a few hours after baffles were installed along the wall to help contain the insulation. We protected all of our recessed lights in hopes of allowing bulbs to burn longer and not over heat. LEDs will help that of course, and yes, they’re on our list. After only 24 hours or so, we can already tell a difference. It’ll be awesome actually tracking the difference since our Nest Thermostat is keeping tabs on usage and temps throughout each day/week/month. I can’t wait to see the savings add up as winter really brings the frigid air. All in all, it was a painless home improvement — an easy way to spend that “un-fun” money, but truly improve our home. And you know, we’ve already promised ourselves that any money saved on energy bills will be put in the “fun” savings account and be used accordingly.
