Well, I won for a change, and boy does it feel good! All the worrying and self-doubt in the world didn't stand a chance against an hour of physical ACTION! Let me set the stage, briefly: Georgia is hot in the Summer. It has been in the low- to mid-90s for over a month now and it doesn't get below 70 at night. Now add that fact to this rather disturbing discovery - there is NO (that is, ZERO) attic insulation over the back half of our house!!! How the plaster and wood in this house has survived this heat for almost 90 years is amazing!
Now for another piece of the puzzle - June electric bill: $300 using just under 3000 kwh! And the warmest months are yet to come. One part of the answer is insulation (another part of the solution was turning the thermostats up to 76 degrees instead of our Rochester-usual 72). For our area, R-30 insulation is typically installed for existing homes. New homes here require R-49. Note the "before" picture below and take a peek at how empty those rafter cavities are! Yes, that's the plaster from my baby boy's ceiling that you're seeing there, squeezing through the cracks.
Now look at the same portion of the attic just 24 hours later! Whoooo hoooo! Take that house! I will not be defeated! I can do it (and Home Depot can help). I took advantage of a freak couple days here in early July when the daily high was only 80 - it was actually comfortable up in the attic (at 1 AM). What you see below is about 70 square feet of R-19 filling the rafters. I will be rolling a blanket of R-30 over these once I'm all done. Also note my handy work on the two middle rafters - I had to pull the insulation batts underneath the Romex wires. Also note the two empty rafter cavities in the extreme foreground of the picture. They're currently empty because there is some functional, but very old knob-and-tube wiring fastened to the rafter and everything I've read strictly prohibits placing insulation anywhere near those wires. Looks like we'll be hiring an electrician to swap out some old circuits... donations, anyone? Stay tuned for more exciting updates... there's another 900 square feet of empty cavities just waiting for a pink blanket!
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