The Worst Bulk Insulation Jobs – Not For The Faint Hearted

Most roof insulation installers start very early in the day. Not because they naturally happen to be what some people refer to as “morning people” but simply because the roof space gets very hot as soon as the sun hits. On the warmest days this even comes to the point of unbearable or unsafe. So, the more work that the installer gets out of the way early in the day the better. After breakfast he loads up his vehicle with the bags of bulk insulation, plugs the first address into his GPS and then he is on his way. It’s a retrofit job; an old house that was never insulated is finally having thermal insulation installed in the roof.

It Must Be the Wrong Address

The insulation installer pulls up, gulps down the final contents of his coffee cup and gets out of the vehicle. After a few steps towards the house something doesn’t seem to be quite right. He must have been given the wrong address. He was expecting the typical pitched roof of many old houses, but this roof is as flat as can be. There’s no way anyone could move around in that space, let alone install ceiling insulation segments. He goes back to the car and calls his boss to report the error, ready to drive on to the corrected address. What’s that? It’s definitely the right address? He brings the phone slowly down. This one is difficult to swallow. It’s going to be a long day.

Working Around a Ducted Air Conditioning System

Other times, it’s hard to tell from the outside that the installer has arrived at another nightmare job. This one is due to the presence of a ducted air conditioning system that can be likened to a giant boa constrictor. If he had the option, the insulation installer would prefer to cut off its head and feed it down the manhole. This is clearly not an option as the residents of the house aren’t interested in trading off their effective cooling system for some bulk insulation, and the installer has to leave it in place. This makes the job of fitting the insulation between the rafters a lot more cumbersome.

Additional Roof Timber Obstacles

Most ceilings follow a typical structure of vertical and diagonal rafters meeting at the top and sloping down, and supporting beams, which makes it relatively easy to navigate around them. Conversely, some ceilings are built with an excessive number of timbers, all over the place. Maybe the house was built by a self-taught builder, who wanted to err on the safe side of his roof structure. The installer who has finally made his way up there with his first bag and stick is then faced with the daunting task of trying to weasel every last ceiling insulation segment manually between the timbers and into position.

While it does cost a bit more to get a professional installer in, it becomes pretty obvious to the installers why they have been called in.