That 14 hour attic crawl in August nearly did me in

Ran a 500 foot drop through a blown-in insulation nightmare in a house off I-35, sweat dripping into my eyes the whole time. The homeowner kept asking if I could fish it through a wall that was already drywalled, no access. Anyone else carry a second rechargeable headlamp after getting stuck in a truss for 20 minutes?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahw5323h ago

...and honestly the backup light is the least of it once you're up there that long. What got me was the heat building up in my chest from climbing over those trusses with a fish tape and a camera, my heart was racing by the time I got to the far side. The real trick nobody talks about is bringing a small spray bottle of water up with you, not to drink but to mist your face and neck when you feel like you're about to tap out. Ten seconds of that and you can push another twenty feet easy. Also, I started wearing knee pads on top of my coveralls after the first time I crawled over a pointy screw plate and nearly went through my patella. How do you handle the spots where the blown insulation is so deep you can't even see the bottom plate without digging with your hands?

max38823h ago

Killed me last summer doing the same thing in an attic off Loop 410. That blown-in crap gets everywhere, up your sleeves, down your collar, even in your ears if you're not careful. I had to literally dig down to the top plate by hand for like ten minutes just to find a spot to screw my support clip in. The spray bottle thing is genius, I always just chugged water but then I had to pee up there, which is its own nightmare. For the deep spots, I started carrying a little hand trowel in my pouch, way faster than digging with fingers and saves your nails from getting shredded on the paper face. And yeah, second headlamp is mandatory now, but I also tape a small flashlight to my fish tape handle so I can see the far side of the cavity without crawling all the way back.