Insulating my floors

[gb8895]

Hi All,

After an initial quote from the insulation company for $6000 to do the floors/crawlspace of my 1200 sf house, I decided to embark upon the of dusty and badass job of installing my own fiberglass bat insulation under my home. I'm 3/4 of the way done but thought I'd share that it has been a tough but rewarding job. 
 
My material costs were around $1500 for
- R-16 flame faced bats delivered on a truck to my home from Home Depot online purchase
- Halogen work light, as well as good respirator, eye protection 
- 6 mil plastic sheeting and stakes to create a vapor barrier on top of the dirt and also make it easier to slide around under my home
- Air compressor + pneumatic stapler (I already had) after I realized that it is nearly impossible to use a standard stapler with 2-3 feet of crawlspace

Labor:
At about 1-2 hours per bag, and a total of 15 bags it looks like it will be a 20-30 hour job all in.  It's pretty straight forward labor, but the fiberglass can really irritate your skin.  I can only do about 1-2 hours of work at a time and I always feels like I had a good workout after I am done.

This was one of those jobs I really did not want to do, but after thinking "how hard can it be?" I am glad I embarked upon it.  Now that winter is really setting in this improvement is creating noticeable differences in the rooms I've completed.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

Awesome! I'm surprised the labor made up so much of the costs in the quote. My brother got a quote for installing insulation under his house, and it was little more than it would have cost to buy it himself at Home Depot/Lowe's. Saving $4500 for $20-30 hours of work is nothing to sneeze at!

[Beardog]

That is totally badass!  I just insulated the pipes for my steam heat system.  An oil technician told me that running my heating system with bare steam pipe was the equivilant of running 6 extra radiators in my basement.  It was an unpleasant job dealing with the fiberglass like you say, but not even close to as badass as installing fiberglass insulation in a crawl space.  Way to go!

[gj83]

Awesome! I'm surprised the labor made up so much of the costs in the quote. My brother got a quote for installing insulation under his house, and it was little more than it would have cost to buy it himself at Home Depot/Lowe's. Saving $4500 for $20-30 hours of work is nothing to sneeze at!

I haven't quoted installing the missing insulation in my crawl space, but when I had blown-in insulation installed in my attic that was my experience.  I could have purchased $400 worth of insulation and conned a friend into helping or I could pay an insulation company $450.  I'm sure many on here would have saved the $50, but it was worth it to me.  One company quoted $1200 because they were going to do all this extra stuff, but the $450 company was great and the ROI was just 6 months at that price!

Comparing the big box prices for batts to the prices I see on Angie's list for installation in my area it seems that I would pay about the same for labor and materials as I would for just materials using several insulation companies in my city.  I've decided to save money on hvac by just not running it so the ROI on replacing a couple hundred square feet in my crawl space would take a while.


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[ysette9]

I am so jealous! I would love to take this on as a project since the floors in the crappy place we live in are so dang cold. Alas, it is a rental. Good for you for taking this on. I imagine the payoff will be well worth it, in comfort alone if not savings in your energy bill.