It's dark and wet down there

Last night I crawled into a very dark and wet hole filled with rusty metal and broken glass. I was trying to insulate the house.

Perhaps I should provide a bit of background information.

In 1890 (or 1870-1890) my house was built. The whole block was built to house railroad workers. They sealed a remarkable amount of crap down in the crawlspace. Alas, none of the crap they sealed down there was insulation. So, come winter, you can't sit on my floor because it's too cold. In fact, the furnace has to struggle a bit to keep the first floor at a reasonable temperature. Some time back I swore to do something about this.

That pink fiberglass roll out stuff is OK insulation, but not great. Plus, down there it'd get damp, lose most of its insulating value, and probably grow mold. That's the last thing I need.

There are big sheets of Styrofoam that could be cut and fit into place. But if the floor joists are as irregular as the ceiling joists were then each piece would be a custom fit.

There is spray foam. Alas, termite sprayers and electricians and insulation sprayers want nothing to do with the underside of my house. I tried using TigerFoam DIY foam but the tanks won't fit under the house and my experience has shown that the hoses don't seal worth a damn and you lose most of the chemical and spend the next 4 years experimenting with ways to clean up the rest.

I finally settled on Multi-Ceramic paint. Multi-Ceramic paint is a paint with an R-rating of 20¹. So a coat of paint the thickness of a business card insulates better than a window and most walls. Alas, it costs about $100 per gallon.

Back when I first got some this blog came up number one on Google for information about the product. Higher than the company that makes it. I'm seeing now that the preferred usage is the inner hull of boats. Also, other people are having the same problem with the supply line that I suffered.

So, I ordered 10 gallons (two 5 gallon buckets) of this stuff back in 2007. By the time it was delivered the cold had come and I wasn't about to crawl under the house. I was ready to do it in 2008 when the weather warmed up. But the stuff had separated and shrunk. I called the company, they asked me if I'd been storing it outside or in the garage. No, I said, it was in the kitchen, then the closet in the library. They said to return it to the dealer and they'd replace it. This was June. Come November they sent me four 3 gallon buckets. So $200 of free paint. On the other hand, the day after I got the stuff the temperature plummeted again.

The only reason they delivered it then was because someone in the company had used their e-mail list to spam people with political propaganda. I flew into a rage telling him that it was completely inappropriate to be using their e-mail database like that, especially when their time would be so much better spent sending me what I ordered oh so long ago.

So, last night I opened one bucket, spent a good 5-10 minutes with a drill mounted paint stirrer making sure that it was all mixed up. I found my worst clothes, found my lamp that clamps on to things, put on goggles, dug out my respirator², poured the paint into the bathroom trash can (since it fits through the hole into the crawlspace), ran power under the house, and hooked up a paint sprayer. Then I shimmied through the hole into the damp, dark, and damp underbelly of my house.

It was a long crawl. Near the front of the house there's enough room between the ground and the joists so that I can sit up as long as I duck. Near the back of the house, where I crawled in, you can just barely crawl on hands and knees. The crawl was made harder due to the fact that I had to keep stopping and bringing along the bucket of paint, the sprayer, the light, and the extension cord.

About halfway along I got sick of crawling and decided to start there. It took awhile for the paint to move up the hose into the sprayer. It's rather thick paint. Even then it liked to cough and sputter. I sprayed from the wall to about the center of the house in between three gaps between joists. Then I crawled to the front of the house. I got from the wall to about 1/3 of the way across when the sprayer stopped working. I think it's just gummed up but efforts to ungum it were unfruitful.

I'm thankful that I keep a rain barrel out back. It provided several gallons of water for rinsing everything.

I think I managed to spray about a gallon of paint. I put it on pretty darn thick, too. There's still a lot of space to cover. Moreso because it'll have to be done with a brush. On the other hand, I shouldn't need the respirator.


¹R-rating is deceptive because it's defined by Owens-Corning and they fiddle with the definition so their products have a high number. Allegedly, the higher the number the better it insulates, but it assumes zero humidity and wind. Either one severely cuts the insulation value. A more honest number is the K-value. It refers to how poorly it conducts temperatures. The higher the number the harder it is for heat or cold to move through it. A metal rod has a low value. This paint is high enough that you can dip a strip of metal in it, hold the painted part, and apply a torch to the other end without burning your fingers.

²What do you mean not everyone keeps one of these around the house?