The first week in May, Gordon and Gareth arrived on site to do the blown-in insulation.
Seven pallets of Thermofloc insulation (made from recycled newspapers) had arrived ahead of them the previous week. Despite all the best planning, the haulier decided to deliver on Thursday rather than the planned for Friday. As no-one was due to be on site that week, my very kind neighbour had agreed to help the driver unload… when the delivery arrived a day early, fortunately he was also around.
The blowing in process is relatively simple: the insulation gets poured out of the bags into a ‘hopper’ in Gordon’s van. This loosens up the product (from being packed tightly into a plastic bag) before pumping it through semi rigid ducting into the wall cavities. The reason for using this insulation rather than other types is that it gets into every nook and cranny, preventing any air gaps. Like many skilled people, Gordon’s expertise – coming from his 30 years working with this type of product – definitely made it all look very straightforward. I’m sure if we’d had a novice coming to do it, things would have been quite different! Once each particular section was full, the round piece of durelis board that had been cut out to allow the ‘needle’ to be inserted was put back in place, secured by airtight tape.
There was due to be a second delivery of 7 pallets of product the day that Gordon and Gareth arrived. Unfortunately the hauliers had a different idea, and despite the fact they were the ones who had actively chosen to split the delivery into two lots (rather than deliver in one hit), and despite lots of phone calls and protestations, the earliest they said the second delivery could come would be the following Monday. So on Friday morning, the final bag of delivery one was pumped in, and Gordon and Gareth headed back to South Wales as they couldn’t hang around twiddling their thumbs until Monday or Tuesday the following week. Very frustrating for all concerned – Gordon for having to fit another trip up in his very busy calendar, including two days of travel, to finish the job; the insulation company for the cost and inconvenience of this double trip; and us for the month delay this would cause waiting for Gordon to be able to return. Whilst still plenty of things we could get done in the house in the meantime, the airtightness test has to wait until the insulation is in.
When Gordon came back just after the Jubilee weekend, none of his usual helpers were available. So I gained a new ‘skill’: keeping the hopper filled with the Thermofloc. One of those jobs that isn’t that difficult, but takes a bit of getting into a rhythm: working out how to most efficiently open the bags (so that they can be re-used later), get the stuff out and into the hopper (as it sticks together a bit), and ensure that it keeps feeding down rather than forming a solid ‘bridge’ over the rotating cutters at the bottom meaning that nothing is being fed through the ducting into the walls. When Gordon was filling the roof rafters, it was like feeding a hungry monster, putting bag after bag into the hopper – you could tell by the noises the machine makes when it was getting empty, and I imagined it was a ‘FEED ME’ sort of noise.
On day 2, Gordon had stayed for the night at my neighbour’s, and over dinner he’d recruited Nick to relieve me as assistant so that I could get on with other stuff. Nick and I agreed that whilst an interesting thing to do for a day – and gain a new skill – we wouldn’t want to be a permanent blown-in insulation assistant! I finished off with Gordon on the morning of day 3, and then it was done – finally on to airtightness test!