leangreen.org recycled renovation on a low-budget ration

Over and again we've read complaints that UltraTouch cotton batt insulation is painful to cut. During a test run installation in our garage, we struggled with cutting the batts on the ground with a 2x4 straight edge and resharpening our Leatherman blade.  It was a two-person job.  The cuts were messy. We often resorted to ripping the batts with our hands so when we stuffed the insulation in the wall, the batts didn't always fit perfectly.  If some of the batts were perforated to accommodate non-standard stud spacing (as the bag claims) that might have helped, but we didn't find any perforated batts in our 16 bales.

During the week-long insulation marathon with Gary, we developed a quicker, better method for installing the denim batts. Using sawhorses, a base, quick grips and a utility knife, Gary perfected the quick and clean cut resulting in a precise friction fit that completely filled the wall cavity. Cutting became a one-person job, making quick work for a two-man team. Changing blades often, every three or four long cuts, was key. We wish someone had done this for us, so we're sharing our how-to cut technique below.

Since competition and the threat of public humiliation spark motivation, we have decided to share our Wall of Shame. In the spirit of New Year's resolutions, January 2010 marks a renewed commitment to The Official Wheeler Street Fitness Quest 2000 Chalkboard Wall of Shame. Formerly recorded on our kitchen cabinet, back when we had a kitchen, this friendly competition tracks a completed set of various fitness exercises.

Here's how it works: each time you do a set, you get a check. For instance, in December (above image), Jen (yellow checks) completed 10 sets of sit-ups while Brian (red checks) only did 1. If you get twenty checks in any exercise within the month, you get an "all-time" point (on right). In December, no one got any all-time points but somehow Brian had points from November when we weren't even really playing yet. But by January (below image), Jen scored three all-time points in the Sit Up, Push Up and Balance-board Squat categories. Brian also chalked up two points for 20 miles of running and 20 sets of push-ups. The first person to get twenty "all-time" points decides the destination of our next trip...plus bragging rights. To equalize handicaps and keep it challenging, we've decided that each time you achieve an "all-time" point, you have to up the ante on your set. So Bri's Push-Up set went from 30 to 35 this month, while Jen's went from 15 to 16.

So far, it's a close race with no clear indication of a leader, although we're developing our own favorite categories. Of course we've convinced ourselves that being healthy and fit is an easy win for our lean and green goals. Yet questions remain: Can the chalkboard fitness quest save us a gym membership? Can we stave off the next flu scare with our outrageously healthy immune systems? And can Jen finally prove to Brian that she's the real athlete in this relationship?

Between the silicone caulk, soy-based spray foam, and recycled denim insulation, we're insulating at about $1 per square foot. Here's how we approach each wall cavity:

1. Use GreatStuff's fire-blocking foam (and all its chemical warfare) to fill and surround all penetrations between floors, as required by code.
2. Use SoySeal's Greenguard-certified spray foam along cavity perimeter and 1/2-inch to 1/4-inch gaps where it'd be difficult to work the cotton insulation.
3. Use Silicone II clear caulk along the seam between the concrete perimeter foundation wall and the sill plate and any gaps less than 1/4-inch.
4. Use a sharp blade pocket-knife and 2x4 straight edge to cut the R21 UltraTouch Cotton batt insulation to fill the 6-inch cavity. Use the knife and some arm wrestling to tear apart the batts to fit around obstacles. Although not as physically easy as fiberglass, the batts are workable with bare hands. They do release a borate dust as your tear, so we wear masks.

We ordered the SoySeal from Home Depot's online service, 6-pack for $30. They're only 16-ounce cans and you go through them quickly, about one per 100 square feet of wall space, so the packaging generates a lot of waste. We ran out so we used the regular GreatStuff (available at the actual Home Depot for about $4/can) and unlike the SoySeal, we immediately could smell the off-gas of chemicals that seemed not-so-friendly to the respiratory system and brain function.

So we're trying to combine the best of both worlds at a compromise price: spray foam airtight seal and removable, high R-value, sound-dampening batts. Costs are running about half of open-cell spray foam ($2/sf) and double the fiberglass batt cost (50 cents/sf). As for time, we're running over an hour per 100 square feet just for the caulk and foam. We're just at the test-run stage, so critique of our technique is welcome.

Before closing up our walls, we need to kill the terrorizing leaks. Last week's leak alert level: six buckets. As expected, the intersection of the old and new roof does not want to seal. Our patches seem improved after another re-layering and re-gooping of the cursed roof triangle this weekend. Today's rain should test the job. It's drizzling, zero buckets so far.

Tigger tours the back landing-pad for the garage and mechanical room. We have a drain in the middle of the concrete patio that works well, but we need a threshold at the doors to the mechanical room to prevent water from splashing back into an unfortunate low point at the corner of the door. The water's been getting into the mechanical room and then the bathroom, a constant reminder of our unsealed state. We bought about $100 worth of metal, rubber and caulk for the threshold work and then decided to use a bucket of leftover concrete instead for a $0 waste-reduction solution. Gary Gray, the Denver Pool Pro who doesn't mind dipping his hands in cement, is out for almost two weeks to help us get the walls closed up. We also plan to build a dam within the mechanical room in case the big hot water tank explodes. The water tank is not yet purchased but needs to be chosen so we can plan for the exhaust flue before closing up the walls. The list of things to do before closing up the walls does not seem to end.