Home Insulation - Getting Ready For Winter (and sick doggie Finnegan!)

I was thinking of some smart-alecky title for this blog post....  kind of like sucking it out and blowing it in? But I didn't think that was quite appropriate.  

Anyhoooo---  at quarter to 8 this morning, the insulation truck arrived. This is something we had contracted for almost 3 months ago. We delayed it once because we first needed to get rid of the 20 or so bats residing in our attic and seal it up.  We had to make sure none of them were coming back in, before we would spend all this money for new insulation. 

We arranged with the Comfort Pro Insulation Company  https://www.comfortproinsulators.com/ to come and remove the old styrofoam ball type insulation that had been put in the north side of the house, as well as the newer batt insulation that we had just put in there on the south side this spring. Once all the insulation was out, then they were hired to spread blown-in cellulose insulation to the level of R50 depth.  

Our house has a weird little known wall structure called "pugging" with an additional layer of plaster and lathe inside the "balloon walls" so that we can't add insulation to the walls. It a 100+ year old German technique of construction for air movement and insulation.  So we are only doing the attic. 

Well, the truck arrived with the three workers, bright and early and ready to go. They started setting up all of their equipment while they were waiting for the dumpster to be hauled to our property.  That was contracted by another company. 

The dumpster company came and we gave them permission to put it right on the grass. We didn't mind if there was a couple gouges. It was much easier than making them run their hoses all the way from the driveway or out in the street. They were happy that they could work in a short distance to the entrance to our attic

Okay, this is what I mean about the two halves of our house. The section on the left to the north is the original home. That side is the attic that is full of tiny styrofoam beads. Years ago, the renters in this house qualified for a free weatherization program through the state organization called Newcap. The solution was to just bring up all these huge bags of styrofoam beads. They are similar to the insides of bean bag chairs. And they dumped them all over in that side of the attic.

The right side which is a separate older home that had been moved here sometime in the fifties or the sixties and were joined together. In this attic portion there is a wood painted floor, high ceilings and a window for access. At one time there had been children's bedrooms up there. Steve made that entire window able to be removed to get in and out with one step. It was much easier than crawling up through a scuttle hole from the middle of our bedroom ceiling? In this portion of the house, Steve had removed the original batt insulation and put in new batts during the Spring. That cost us $280. But little did we know we still had those pesky varmint bats up there who happened to poop all over it during the summer! So those needed to be removed as well before we have this new stuff installed.

The guys hauled out all of their equipment and attached their hoses. They scoped out the situation and Steve furnished them with two nice big halogen work lights on a stand to see what they were doing up there. We tried to make it as easy as possible for them to do a good job.  (and we tipped them each some lunch money afterwards).

This is the huge suction device that takes care of removing the old insulation. This old stuff gets blown into the big dumpster with a screen over the top to make sure didn't blow all over our neighborhood! See all the yellow bales stacked up in there of new insulation? That's the new stuff that will be blown in once the old stuff is removed.

Here's a close-up of the old stuff where a little bit spilled onto the ground. This is what I mean about little teeny styrofoam balls. Of course they were also liberally sprinkled with bat poop!  The guys cleaned this all up before they left....

This is the new insulation that was blown in. It's a cellulose type product that is treated for flame retardancy, mold growth and insect prevention qualities.

This is the blower device. One guy stands inside and feeds it through bag by bag. He keeps track of each bag that is being opened and put into the hopper. It automatically feeds up the hose into the attic where the other guys are up there spreading it around and making sure it is evenly distributed.

Here is a video I shot of the process:

Once they got the north side finished, before they could spread the insulation in the south side, the guys obligingly removed the huge bales of the old batt insulation that Steve had bundled up in advance. They tossed them out and down to the ground. 

Then they were able to also load them into the dumpster to be disposed of properly. 

They were done well before noon, and packed up all of their equipment. With everything in the dumpster they said we could still add a couple things if we needed to. Surprisingly, we just happened to have an old roll of flooring from our bathroom from last week. That made it into the dumpster along with a couple other things. What the heck? We were paying for a full dumpster, we might as well fill it up right?

Within the hour, the dumpster company came and took care of loading it up, tarping over the top, and hauling it all the way. By 1 p.m. everything was done and you wouldn't have even known anyone was here working on anything.

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In the midst of all of this going on, we had our own other crisis to deal with. The last few weeks, we have noticed our little Mr. Finnegan has been losing weight. We weren't sure what was going on. We also noted that he was drinking fine and urinating, but his poop situation was getting smaller and smaller in diameter. 

He seemed to be favoring his teeth when he was chewing.  We know he's just about due for some dental work and he also had a tooth pulled during the last year or so before we moved from Chilton.  These two rescue dogs came from a hoarding situation where none of their genetics were very good. All of the dogs from that bad breeder have dental problems as well as diminishing vision, hearing and other health issues. 

He wasn't eating much at all. We were getting quite concerned. We tried watering down his hard food so it was softer. Then we even went so far as to purchase a couple cans of his same dog food but only in the wet version to give him. He ate some for the first day or two but not that much. We were getting quite concerned over the weekend because he really didn't eat much at all. He still seems bright and alert, but we could tell that something was wrong.

Since we have not yet established ourselves at a veterinarian since moving up here in the area, I thought I would give a call to the Peshtigo Veterinary Clinic, some of the other locals recommended them as being the best in the area.  https://www.peshtigovet.com/ I called at 8 a.m. They said I could immediately bring Finnegan there by 9 a.m.! 

As a new patient, 

what wonderful service is that? 

They offer curbside service where you pull into a numbered spot and give them a call inside when you arrive. They handle all the paperwork over the phone and then they come out to your vehicle to get your pet. They even use their own leashes and don't even touch your leash which is left behind in the car.

We agreed to an exam, some blood work, running an x-ray if need be for a blockage, and they copied over all of his previous health history that I brought from our other vet in Chilton.

They came out twice to consult with me and back in again. Everything was done with masks and through the car window opened only a tiny bit.  

They returned Finnegan back to the car and let him sit with me while we were waiting for the blood test results. Once those were done, the vet came back out to speak with us.

All his bloodwork was good other than elevated white blood cells. They gave me copies of all the tests. He is not dehydrated and electrolytes etc are fine.  But he has problems at "BOTH ENDS" ....

Finnegan has an abscess on a back tooth that is infected. Because of him gingerly not wanting to bite down or eat things, he also has not been doing well at the other end with having full complete bowel movements. That resulted in impacted anal glands! So they had taken care of that and they also prescribed antibiotics for a week to get down the infection. What a poor little boy he got it from both ends! They also gave him some anti-nausea drugs and sent him home. We have an appointment at 1 week to go in and have the tooth removed once the infection is cleared up.

As you can see here, he is not a very happy little boy.

When we came in the door, Binney had to sniff him over from head to toe. She has never been separated from him before. She was quite distressed and worried about her buddy. 

I cannot imagine what any of us would ever do if we didn't have our little Mr. Finnegan.