I guess we've all had our share of attics. Some are a real challenge to get around. How about the ones with the ceiling rafters of the floor below you are 2' on center. You have to be an acrobat.
Anyone got a story about some nasty attics, or crawl spaces? Dust, lack of Air, summer time?
Feet almost going through the floor?

I did a commercial remodel of a building that was built in 1902. They had a suspended ceiling but decided to get rid of it and do the "exposed" look. That led to me being in the attic everyday for about a month, in the middle of summer The attic had all the goodies...dead birds, bats, etc... That must have been the worst job I've ever done.

I hate attics. I'll take a crawl space over a attic sauna anyday. I had one that they had completly covered with ply wood. And the HO expected me to fish from up there.

Had a young man helping me one time who put not just a foot through the ceiling, he managed to get half of his body through it!

I think I'd rather work in an Attic than a wet crawlspace with BIG Slugs all over the place.

It's one of my unforgettable memories.


Bill

...Same here, man...I was in an attic...(as usual)..this summer,and I'm up there swimmin' thru the sea of insulation, and I heard a buzzing sound down by the eave...I got closer...(stupid move)and lifted the carpet of insulation and was stunned to find the BIGGEST,mother of all hornets nests that I've ever seen in my life...it was a metropolitan city of the winged bastards...I high-tailed it out of there,faster than you could say "Anaphalactic Shock"..and advised the dubious homeowner that if he wanted me to return and finish the job,he'd better get a "bug hit-man" up there....true story..

..yeah I do alot of attic work,..I can't send the "kids" up there cuz I don't trust them by themselves yet,and also they're so dopey, they might step between the joists and wind up in the dining room downstairs ...or worse....I don't mind it tho'..comes with the territory,..I guess

Crawling through attics has got to be my least favorite part of the job. Older houses tend to have quite steep piched roofs, giving room to stand up in the center, but due to age they're usually absolutely filthy up there.

Newer single-storey homes here tend to have much shallower pitch roofs, often the trussed type. The sheer quantity of struts and supports makes crawling through the already limited space very difficult at times, especially when the owner has had an extra complement of fiberglass insulation added so that it's almost impossible to see where the rafters are located.

Crawlspaces aren't nearly so common here, as many newer houses were/are built with solid concrete floors.

I was working in my own house one time and was snaking a wire down the wall. I felt something slither across my ankle, looked and saw a huge black rat snake eyeing me. Yeesh, I got out of there as quick as I could without getting bitten. Thats when I decided to go up from the cellar. At least there I've got a standing start on the critters.

I once had to run EMT in a crawl space once that originated in the garbage compactor room of an apartment building. There was a never ending supply of cock roaches that supported an equally large community of spiders that fed off them. The cock roach carcases looked literally like coffee grounds and covered the bottom of the crawl space (sometimes inches deep!)and hung in the webs. Attics? NO problem!

I was in an attic one time, where all the pink insulation was torn off the paper backing by a family of squirrels. They must of used it for insulation to make a nest for the winter. The attic had a lot of squirrel ----
all over the place. Luckily, I didn't have to do too much up there. I couldn't believe what they did to the insultion.

What about fiberglass insulation thoroughly saturated with liquid and solid forms of cat, rodent and pigeon excreta?

hbiss and bjarney

What's really nasty is not just the creepy crawly roaches. It's the DUNG they leave behind. That stuff COATS everything and does it SMELL!!!!

It looks like a hazy sticky deposit with little brown dots (the size of sand grains).

I'm sure that if you've ever worked in a trash compactor room, big-city basement or even on some old broken appliance, television, recordplayer or radio set that was brought in for repair (like the portable my aunt asked me to look at), you're familiar with that god-forsaken STENCH. The minute I lifted the lid of the CD player section it came wafting out.

Wound up tossing the whole thing into a plastic bag and dropkicking it into a garbage can outside. GAG!


[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 12-16-2003).]

Whats always fun is the attics with blown in insulation, its like there is 6 inches of snow up there, makes finding the joists a lot of fun... only fell thru the attic once, I ended up inside an empty closet with no knob on the inside and to top it off I got clocked with my mag lite once I hit the floor. But I will still take an attic over a nasty dank crawl space anyday... My father did residential alarm installs for about 15 years and he said that he can't remember how many tools he left in a crawlspace that it just wasn't worth it to slither back thru to retrieve them.

That Blown-in stuff is bad.

My worst experience with that was in an attic that was about 12 inches high at the peak. I had to shimmy across to bring a wire from a switch to a new fan location. After going across the full length of the attic my flashlight (in my teeth) caught the glow of 2 eyes in the corner where I had to go!

I think it was a Squirrel, but didn't wait to find out. I backed out as quickly as I could and brought like a Garbage can worth of insulation down the scuttle hole with me. What a mess!

Bill

LMAO,Bill, I hear you...it ain't easy...so why do plumbers make out better than us..? it ain't fair...you don't see them crawling around,swiiming thru insulation and vermin detritus...

Hey AtticRat,come with me sometime and we'll change out a sewer pump. Plumbing ain't all fun.

Attic Rat,

No, I've worked some with a Plumber. Not a lot, but enough to know that I'd rather be in the crawlspace with the Slugs.


Bill

... I was only funnin'...every trade has its ups and downs...I actually worked as a plumbers aide myself....but i got all the grunt work...sewer traps, stinky toilet clogs.....ycccck!!

About a year ago I'm in this crawl space where there had been a broken sewage pipe. When the plumber makes the repair he puts down about 500 pounds of lime to neutralize the odor. The dryer is also vented under the house. I have to replace the circuit to the sewer pump so here I go on hands and knees through the sewage, lime and dryer lint. I'm saying to myself It can't get much worse than this. Those 120 degree attics look pretty good then.

Bill,
Is that the Vermiculite chip insulation you're talking about? (Like small balls of polystyrene). I have that stuff in my attic, and I do tend to bring some down with me each time I go up there, but I'd rather that than crawl through itchy fiberglass.

My local plumber would probably disagree with you there. I've worked with him on quite a few projects in my area, and he's often up there! See, there is some justice...

Just got done fishin' a replacement NM home run for my customer's house (the same one with those "compliant" installations in the pictures board).

House is a hip roof (all four sides slant), built in 19 ought-something (old house smell), with blown in fiberglass insulation in it - and I'm face first in the stuff reaching into a 5"x5"x6" triangle access by the corner to snare the lead wire to pull up the NM.

Came down with a cold over the next few days - figure it's my immune system telling me to mask up next time.

BTW, 16" o.c. = 16-24" more-or-less in old house construction. And the abandoned knobs from the K&T make great knee-catchers!

No, I don't envy plumbers. Many years ago I was working in a new condo development. I was finishing up a panel that was located in a utility closet in one of the units. At my feet was a scuttle hole that accessed the crawl space below. Along comes the plumber with a tubing cutter, torch and some tools and down the scuttle hole he goes. Now, since all the plumbing fixtures were already installed, unbeknownst to this guy all the other trades made use of them for quite some time. Only problem was the 3" copper riser from like 3 floors was capped in the crawlspace and never connected to the cast iron sewer line. Apparently this guy was there to take care if that. I hear him put the cutter on the pipe and give it a turn or two and then all I hear is GET ME A BUCKET QUICK!!

Boy, that would put me off being a Plumber for sure! Paul,

I've seen a couple different types of Insulation used. The Vermiculite chips, tiny styrofoam pellets and the kind I was referring to above is like gray lint (sorry, I have no idea what it's made of). The stuff I was talking about sticks to clothing and sweaty skin real well so when you come out you're a real mess!

Anybody know what that gray stuff is?

Bill

It's Cellulose fill. Fire treated Newspaper actually.

I, too, work in many attics. I wear my hard hat most of the time because in years past, I got sick of cutting my head open on protruding nails from the roofers. Recently completed a job where I had to install a new bathroom exhaust fan/light/night-light combo. Went up in the attic, where there was rolled insulation, peeled it back, and uncovered tons of mouse skeletons. Freaked me out.

BTW - That gray "dirty cotton ball" stuff used to have the trade name of "Rock Wool" back in the day.

Ah, I know the stuff you mean. It doesn't seem to be that common over here, but I see it from time to time.

.. Does that stuff contain any asbestos???I hope not!!

I had to crawl under a trailer (mobile home) one time that had a fenced in yard that the owner keep dogs in. Well the dogs had puppies and they would get though the skirting and stay under the trailer. This meant that they would crap there also. I crawled on my elbows and toes the entire time. This was exhausting, but it keep me from having to slide thought the crap.

I have started wearing my coveralls when I have to go in to either an attic or crawlspace. This makes it much nicer when you come out and peal off most of the insulation or dirt.

What I hate the most about both is the spider webs. This is assuming that there are not any snakes around.

Nope, it's even less bad than glass fibre, they say you can use it without gloves. I think it's still around, at least I think I've seen the logo at some sites.

smokee — Tyvek coveralls [and maybe duct tape] are handy, if you don’t get any griping about disposing of them in your client’s trash. Maybe implement a standard $25 ‘expendables’ fee for the process, too. Suggest type with hood & booties. Handy use hints at www.cdc.gov/nasd/docs/d001001-d001100/d001071/d001071.html

I would love to meet the genius who invented fiberglass insulation.

I would like to ring his neck and just ask why.

Tev

I've been in a few roof spaces and underfloor areas in my time.
The worst roof I've ever been in was way out in the country and I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened the manhole.
There was all this coloured wool(like you'd get from a ball of yarn), it was all cut up and it was about 2ft deep, over the entire area of the roof space!.
And you can say what you like about wool, but Good Lord does it keep the heat in.

As for attics, in the 25 years in business, I worked in one so tiny and so hot that I almost passed out in there. I had the shakes so bad that I couldn't finish the job. Another time in the middle of the summer the attic fan blew the circuit. I had to crawl through 150 plus dergree attic, kill a wasp nest, take apart the splice that fed the bad attic fan before I could restore power to the second floor. Also I never ever fell through a ceiling but came close. In a third attic I was pulling a wire when I back into a hornets nest. I ran across the floor joist but missed one, stepped in between the beams, touched the sheet rock, changed the weight from that foot to the other, and kept on running. I just popped out 2 screws in the ceiling below. Plus there was the time thatthe attic was full a racoon droppings. The attic stunk, had SH** every where, and the owner wanted my to crawl around up there installing new shwitchs, and outlets.

As for crawl spaces, had my share of them too. The one time we where deep under a house in a crawl space and came face to face with a snake, a dead cat, wolf spiders as big a your fist, and cave crickets. I had to work in a pump house and when I opened up the door, the whole wall looked like it was moving. The wall was covered in those cave crickets. They jumped all over me, in my shirt, down my pants, etc. I ran out of the building and dropped my panets to get the little critters out of them. Luckily I was working in the woods on the edge of a town. I HAD to go back inside because the pump fed about 30-50 houses with water. So I had toput on a hat, gloves, duct tape all openings like pant cuffs and shirt cuffs, collers etc. to keep the critters out. After about 2 hours of having these thing jump all over me I got the pump up and working and I was out of there. Ah the things we have to do to make a living.

Doug,

That Rock Wool was NASTY stuff. It would takes days to clean out all the little fiberglass splinters in your hands. I always carried, coveralls, face masks and gloves in all my trucks. You never knew when you were going to need it.

I've been told that vermiculite has asbestos in it. t is also used in gardens to retain moisture in the Summer. You can imagine what it does if a roof leaks.
Three attics I worked in had aluminum foil stretched across the rafters. Some shyster in years past must of convinced people it was insulation. One atic was full of wood chips. What a fire hazard.
Crawl spaces. Visqueen ground cover with pools of cat pee was the worst.