We have an annual meeting for the condo association….annually of course.  And we just had it in January, we had a discussion about the insulation that blew out in the hurricane and the cost to blow in new insulation.  One of the unit owner was complaining about his high energy bills, so a decision was made to put more insulation in the attic of both buildings.  I had already received a bid of $1,000 for just one unit.  “What!?” one unit owner exclaimed.  “I can do all four for less than $500 and it will only take a few hours!”  Most of the other unit owners agreed that was a wonderful idea and some even volunteered to help with the process, including Gary and I.

So…..we buy 33 bags of shredded paper and they give us the blower for free.  Ok, how tough can this be?  We’ll have this pounded out in a couple of hours.  Let’s get going

Kirplunk

Lets just shove this whole bag of insulation in the machine…huh….nothin is happening….guess we put too much in too soon…stop the machine, pull out the chunk we put in, of course it doesn’t come out in one piece like it went in….Colleen!  Go get some garbage bags!…..there, it’s all out.  We’ll just put in smaller chunks….what?  It’s clogged?  Already?  What the heck?  Stop the machine, try to get the hose unplugged, find out there are big chunks in the hose.  Shake the hose out.  Turn it on and try it again.  What?!  It’s plugged again?  This goes on for a few more times till they decide there must be something wrong with the machine.  Let’s load it up and take it back for a different one.  After an hour delay they are ready to try again

Little by little

They decide they need to open the bag and “scratch” very small pieces off the paper block so the machine doesn’t clog.  This works fairly well till they have another clog.  They figure out there is a hose under the machine that gets clogged really easily.  They have to tip the machine upside down, bang the machine, take the bottom plate off, unscrew the small hose, break out their air compressor, blow out the hose, screw the small hose back and start all over again.  This happens about every 1/2 hour.  Sometimes they get the machine to unplug by taking off the hose and turning on the machine so all the insulation blows all over the stairs

What a mess!

Some times the two guys in the attics, Gary being one of them, need to change positions so they need the machine to be stopped.  Of course no one can hear the other so we need a middle man to shout back and forth

STOP! STOP! STOP!

I was going to be the smart one.  This was ridiculous, I’m thinking, these machines shouldn’t be clogging so easily.  There is an 800 number on the machine, I’ll call that.  I get some woman on the line, not that I don’t think women could handle this or anything but anyway, we start our conversation.  She first identifies which machine we have so she can pull out her trouble shooting list.  She first tells me it has to be plugged into a dedicated 220 outlet.  Like a stove or a dryer I ask?  Yes she says.  But we have it plugged into a regular extension cord I say, it can’t have a 220 plug on it.  It needs to be plugged into 220 to make the blower work optimally.  But, she says, it’s OK to plug it into an extension cord but the cord can be no longer than 50 feet.  I told her again I don’t think it has a 220 plug, she said yes it does.  She said we should also tip it upside down and bang it to loosen the insulation and thereby unclog the machine.  Ok, I say, we’ll give that a try.  I hang up on her and figure that lady had no idea what she was talking about so I just let the boys handle it their own way, it seemed to be working.  So much for thinking I’d be the smart one  

After taking all day and Colleen learning some new swear words, they were all done. After cleaning up the mess, I asked them how many wanted to do that again…..I didn’t get too many takers  

Cost of insulation $350, cost of machine rental $0, team building at the condo association = Priceless.