|
A sharp object (either a rock or piece of concrete) was jabbing
me in the back, as I laid in the cold dirt with cobwebs brushing
against my face in near total darkness. The eight-foot piece of
Kraft-backed insulation pretty much blocked all the light from the
trouble light hanging at the open end of the crawl space. The
90-year-old floor joists were less than a foot from my face.
“Now I know how someone buried alive feels,” I thought, as I tried to
push the insulation up between the joists and staple it in place,
basically by braille. If I had been a person suffering from
claustrophobia, I would have been going insane. Come to think of it,
slithering on my back 16 feet to the exterior basement wall clutching
two lengths of fiberglass insulation in a dirt crawl space that
provided less than two feet of vertical clearance probably was insane.
But I promised my wife and daughter I would try to remedy the cold
floor issues we were having in the old portion of our modest one-story
house.
The small frame house was built just prior to World War I. I guess they
didn’t believe much in basements back then…at least not the folks who
built the original portion of the house located at 301 North Ida
Street, Canton. Several additions were added to the house during two
other wars…WWII and the first Gulf War. A basement was part of the
1940s addition, and the large family room, built in 1991, included 24
inches of insulation beneath the floor.
But the oldest portion of our abode that serves as a TV room and
bedroom was a constant source of complaints registered during the
winter months by the two women in my life. During the recent cold spell
that kept the mercury on the cold side of zero for more than a week, I
decided to take action. I’d heard enough, the squeaky wheel was going
to get the grease.
I had worked in the building trades for a decade, and installed
thousands of bats of insulation. But I have to admit, I never subjected
my body to anything quite like this. I knew it was going to be a
struggle sliding enough bats of insulation all the way back to the
outer reaches of the crawl space so I wouldn’t have to make too many
trips back and forth. And had it been just dirt that I was worming
over, it wouldn’t have been quite so bad. But the crawl space was
littered with rocks and chunks of concrete that induced considerable
pain as I attempted to negotiate beneath the floor joists on my back.
My self-imposed tomb was full of century-old dust, fiberglass
insulation particles, and quite a bit of blue smoke produced from the
expletives originating from my respirator.
I made it all the way to the back of the crawl space with four bats of
insulation. I got the first piece in place and began fastening it with
my trusty staple gun. Unfortunately, the gun wasn’t as trusty as I
thought. It jammed after the fourth staple. There was no way I was
going to be taking the staple gun apart while lying on my back in the
dark. So I had to slither out of the crawl space, on my back, feet
first. I used to wonder how those break dancers did all those dance
moves on the floor, including “the worm.” Now I know.
Three hours, four trips in and out of my tomb, and several thousand
swear words later, I was stapling the last piece of insulation into
place.
During my years in the building trades, I derived a certain sense of
accomplishment when finishing a new house, a remodeling or addition
project, or a landscaping job. But as I pulled myself out of the crawl
space and shook the first layer of cobwebs, dust, and dirt from my
clothes, all I felt were the early strains of major aches and pains
that would be coming to a crescendo when I pulled myself out of bed the
next morning.
There are a number of reasons why I got out of the building trades and
back into journalism nearly 10 years ago. My crawl space insulating
project certainly strengthens my conviction that I made the right
choice.
 |
