Well, this year Queens Birthday was cold and wet and, without 'she-who-will-not-be-named' and her Mother living with me any longer I figured that I could escape landscaping the property and decided to install some Pink Batts instead.
"What a mistakea to makea" as Sunil would say.
Buying the Batts was the easy bit, even transporting them home (and reversing with a trailer) was comparatively simple - when put up against the mission of cleaning the rust flakes, roofing nails, the discarded wiring (from the rewiring of the house), birds nests and 70 or so years of dust and 'stuff'.
Now, for those readers who are yet to be initiated into the exciting world of home insulation, pink batts come in lots of different thicknesses and obviously, the thicker the batt, the more insulation it can provide. Now, being the energy conscious lad that I am, I was originally looking for 3.2 batts, but as no one had these in stock when I did my ring around, I had to settle for 2.6 batts.
In reality however, the place with the best price on bales of 2.6 Batts apparently didn't have enough in stock and so when I went to pick them up on the Saturday morning I ended up with 1.8 Batts. I'm torn between being pissed that the guy I was talking to on the Friday when I placed the order not saying "Oh that new price, of course that's for Batts that are only half as thick, sorry to completely change the direction of your purchase.." and the fact that I ended up saving a bit of dosh on buying batts thicker than what I probably needed living in Auckland.
I guess that I can always buy another few bales and drop them over the lounge and bedrooms if it gets cold enough...
I really do need to learn how to back a trailer, it took me a good 3 mins to reverse out of the ITM warehouse where I loaded up the bales and, driving home at 80km/h so they didn't fly out of the trainer was a frustrating experience… I don't think I'm designed for a slow pace.
The return trip was much better though I did manage to keep myself below 100km/h. Oh and get this, I'm now in the draw to win a Sony Home Theatre as part of a Pink Batt promotion - it'd be most amusing if I won, but from the entry form it looks like they're giving away the Gold Series Sony amp which is a step up from mine.. so hmmmm - it could be a very nice thing to have happen.
Setting up the lights in the roof illuminated the enormity of the task ahead in more ways than one. Seventy years of dust, birds nests and rust flakes from the roof that was replaced last year needed to be swept up and disposed of. Thus far (writing on the Tuesday following the long weekend) I've got 9 shopping bags full of dust, rust, straw and off cuts of tin from the re-roofing to dispose of - and I haven't vacuumed the ceiling over my room nor have I swept up the dust and rust over the bathroom, kitchen and dining room. I can't face that this week (and neither can my sinuses) so I may just endure the vacuuming over my room - lay those batts over my room then leave the roof for a week or so to let my sinuses clear themselves out before punishing them again.
The cleanup took me all of Saturday and as much of Sunday as I could squeeze in before the Tua fight (which only lasted 41 seconds before the other guy went down on the canvas - so I guess I could've really done the whole day - but then, I was getting fairly sick of the whole roof thing by then).
On Monday I could only handle laying the Batts and, as idennis had returned home the night before I at least wanted to get some insulation laid before the week started in earnest so the Lounge, Office and id's bedroom were done while idennis was at work. I gave up around 4pm to have a shower and put on some clean clothes for the first time that weekend.
The following weekend I was up there again and managed to vacumn and lay batts over my room as well as sweep and vacumn over the bathroom and kitchen - All that's left now is a little bit of the dining room - but, this weekend I'm going to get up and lay the Batts over the kitchen and bathroom, as well as drill the holes through the wall with Sharkies sectional drill.