Unfortunately, the second application of insulation also failed in the same way the first batch did. Everyone is mystified - and, alas for my need to vent righteous indignation, acting with utter professionalism and integrity to try to figure out what's going on. Our contractor's worked with the stuff before; the installer's worked with it before, and of course the manufacturer has as well...yet even though everyone's followed all recommended procedures (as far as they know anyway), still things are going weird.
I have a theory (no, it's not bunnies).
You may recall that the morning the insulation was initially installed, a poor little squirrel had entered in through the eyebrow dormer window in search of rancid cookies and, presumably frightened by the men in moonsuits making noise and carrying scary hoses, skittered off into the soffits to hide. Once the insulation was installed, poor Soffity the Squirrel was trapped! He was scared to death - pooping all over the place, desperately scratching and looking for a way out, like Buffy when she woke up in her tomb after Willow's spell... Fortunately, we eventually figured out what was going on, and opened a hole for the squirrel to get out.
But it was too late.
As soon as Soffity recovered, he and his squirrel brethren and sistren pronounced a Squirrel Curse upon the evil insulation that had trapped him.
My theory is the insulation will work only if we propitiate the squirrel gods. I think scattering a bunch of nuts in the front yard ought to do it. A prayer or invocation or suchlike will probably help, too: "O Great Squirrel God, we are heartily sorry for injuring and traumatizing Soffity, your faithful hoppity, fluffity-tailed worshipper!"
(I think the Great Squirrel God's name is "Buddy")
Showing posts with label critters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label critters. Show all posts
7.12.2008
yo soy insulados
After a day and a half of watching men in strange white suits emerge covered with flecks and daubs of strange whitish goo, we wandered up to the new space to discover...insulation! Okay, we knew that's what was going on...but it did look kind of science-fiction-y. Still does, actually:
This "foam in place" insulation provides better R-value (the measure of insulation) and is soy-based (thus my atrocious pseudo-Spanish pun as title). Unlike its distant cousin, such as the polyurethane used in the hideous Wisconsin Dells "Xanadu, House of the Future" - which we saw just before it was destroyed in the mid-'90s, this stuff won't give off a terrible funk...which at Xanadu wasn't just because of the Prince-style decor, which included a round bed and pink-purple shag carpeting. I think everything was sealed up so tight there was no airflow. Although you want insulation to insulate, you still need to allow air to circulate...
Of course, our freaky future-cave walls aren't the real walls, only the insulation - the drywaller's scheduled within a week or so, after the windows are installed.
We also had an adventure with a rogue squirrel. Seems he managed to get in, probably yesterday, via an opening in the plastic covering one of the windows, and then managed to sequester himself within the soffit space. They tend to be scared of noises and people, and we had plenty of those. Unfortunately for Soffity the Squirrel, the noises and people were the aforementioned men in white suits with hoses full of plastic goo (okay, "soy-based goo"...), who were not Devo but were insulators - and after their work, Soffity was trapped. We heard him scratchiting about last night, trying to find a way out. So this morning, we went up on a ladder and freed an opening in the soffits. The Humane Society's website said squirrels do not like noises and suggested playing loud, percussive music or talk radio (squirrels hate right-wing politics), so we set up two boomboxes at either end of the attic and deployed each one with an Einstürzende Neubauten CD on shuffle mode. Fortunately, Soffity is not a fan of the German avant-noise scene, and as far as we can tell (no scritching tonight) he left through the exit we provided for him. We do hope he didn't drop dead of a heart attack - I guess we'll find out in a day or so.
(Fun fact: two Neubauten tracks playing simultaneously is nearly indistinguishable from a single Neubauten track!)
This "foam in place" insulation provides better R-value (the measure of insulation) and is soy-based (thus my atrocious pseudo-Spanish pun as title). Unlike its distant cousin, such as the polyurethane used in the hideous Wisconsin Dells "Xanadu, House of the Future" - which we saw just before it was destroyed in the mid-'90s, this stuff won't give off a terrible funk...which at Xanadu wasn't just because of the Prince-style decor, which included a round bed and pink-purple shag carpeting. I think everything was sealed up so tight there was no airflow. Although you want insulation to insulate, you still need to allow air to circulate...
Of course, our freaky future-cave walls aren't the real walls, only the insulation - the drywaller's scheduled within a week or so, after the windows are installed.
We also had an adventure with a rogue squirrel. Seems he managed to get in, probably yesterday, via an opening in the plastic covering one of the windows, and then managed to sequester himself within the soffit space. They tend to be scared of noises and people, and we had plenty of those. Unfortunately for Soffity the Squirrel, the noises and people were the aforementioned men in white suits with hoses full of plastic goo (okay, "soy-based goo"...), who were not Devo but were insulators - and after their work, Soffity was trapped. We heard him scratchiting about last night, trying to find a way out. So this morning, we went up on a ladder and freed an opening in the soffits. The Humane Society's website said squirrels do not like noises and suggested playing loud, percussive music or talk radio (squirrels hate right-wing politics), so we set up two boomboxes at either end of the attic and deployed each one with an Einstürzende Neubauten CD on shuffle mode. Fortunately, Soffity is not a fan of the German avant-noise scene, and as far as we can tell (no scritching tonight) he left through the exit we provided for him. We do hope he didn't drop dead of a heart attack - I guess we'll find out in a day or so.
(Fun fact: two Neubauten tracks playing simultaneously is nearly indistinguishable from a single Neubauten track!)
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