Fans of indoor adventure rejoice, for I have started this year's attic project. My investigations of the literature of insulation, back to its early days in the 1950s, shows that it is always recommended to put down a vapor barrier in the attic before insulating. A vapor barrier can be a plastic sheet, or even heavy paper like many types of fluffy pink insulation have on one side. Without a vapor barrier the warm air from the house will rise up through cracks in the ceiling and when it contacts the colder air of the attic the moisture will condense out. If the moisture condenses in the insulation it can seep down through the plaster of the ceiling or into the wood structure of the house. It's not a huge amount of water, nowhere near what might come from a small leak in the roof, but it's still something you want to avoid. Last year I added more vents to the roof, increasing the temperature difference between the warm room and the cold attic above. Cracked areas in the old plaster ceiling of the front bedroom became discolored and the multiple layers of ancient paint curled away from the cracks, because of condensation.
The attic is insulated with blown-in cellulose. That's basically shredded paper fluff. It's not the best insulation but it's good when done right. Guess whether they did it right in this house. What they did was just pump it in there as quickly as possible. That means no vapor barrier anywhere. What I am doing is scooping the fluff out from between the rafters, putting down plastic sheet on the upper side of the ceiling, and putting the insulation back, to try to get it to be the way it should have been in the first place.
The drawbacks are many. First the attic is about four feet high at its tallest point, and it's triangular so it goes down to zero inches high at the edges. There is also a section on one side that is about four feet deep, that starts at about three feet high and goes down to zero inches at the far side. The only way to get the fluff out of there, using an old dustpan with the handle broken off that I found up there, is to stretch in there full length, lying on a piece of wood across the rafters. That is also the way to get the plastic in when the fluff is scooped out. All this is done in respirator and coveralls, in the dustiest, fluffiest, filthiest conditions imaginable, in a tiny triangular space with lots of great protrusions to bash your skull against. I tried wearing a helmet up there once, but that only makes my head bigger and I bashed it into things every few seconds. It's best to just not bash my head into anything at all and the way to learn to do that is by bashing it a couple of times. Not only that, the ancient technique of nailing wooden shingles onto the roof has left the underside of the roof studded with innumerable tiny rusty nail points, so you don't want to bump you head on that at all. In addition, it is built of the splinteriest wood possible, the kind of splinters that will go into your flesh or up under your fingernail faster than you can cuss.
One good thing about it is that I am increasing the insulation value quite a bit by using my remaining accumulation of the I Buy Houses and We Buy Houses and Avoid Foreclosure signs I have taken down from telephone poles throughout Southeast Portland. The signs are just like corrugated cardboard only made of plastic, so there is a great airspace inside. I put the plastic sheet down between the rafters, with the signs cut to size to fit snugly. I thought I would have to staple the plastic in but the signs hold it firmly against the wood on either side. Then I scoop the fluff back in and start scooping the next space out. I believe this will just about double the insulation value, keeping the upstairs cooler when it's hot and warmer when it's cold.
I spent about four hours up there today and got a pretty good start on it. After four hours crawling in the filthy attic scooping dusty fluff out of crannies I can barely reach I feel like I have done something. That shower sure feels good too.
