Batt Man

Rejean, my only French Canadian trade, was in today to install the batt insulation on the 1st floor walls, 2nd floor walls, required attic areas (ie on top of pot lights, skylight walls) and the 1st floor open roof area in the family room / kitchen.

I love this guy, though I only see him 4 or 5 days a year.  His work is excellent and he always makes sure everything is 100% in terms of insulation but also watches out for electrical, plumbing, HVAC, alarm and tech and other things that may be of concern while he's doing his work.

The workers are all family in one way or another and the way they work probably means they are a happy family:  mother, father and sons and sons-in-laws all working in harmony - what a great crew!

Foaming the basement

For cost and performance, we are going with a hybrid of foam and conventional batt insulation in the house.  Home insulation was in today installing the foam on the basement walls, basement and 1st floor joist pockets, the garage ceiling, and some select areas (around steel beams) that are hard to insulate and would create a thermal bridge if left alone.

Hear that?

While Kevin had to wait around for his electrical inspector today, we had the boys in doing final clean up in the basement and installing the some soundproofing insulation.

We decided it was only needed around the upstairs laundry room, the kids washroom (it's between their two rooms), the master suite (that's a no brainer!) and some select areas downstairs.  It's amazing what a difference a little insulation makes.  

Now we wait for the foam guys tomorrow, conventional insulation guys on Thursday, then the drywall gets delivered Friday.  Next week, we'll see what the inside of this house looks like :-).

As a footnote, Mario also hooked up the water heater today!