Warm Floor

**I have Jeremy's permission to share this story.**

Since we bought our house 7. 5 years ago we have not had insulation under the floor. Our floor has always been cold and since we pulled up the carpet and refinished the original hardwood the floor has been really really cold. You can literally feel air coming up through the slats of wood.

So we've had two outrageously expensive heating oil bills in 6 weeks and I guess that spurred Jeremy to action. Out of the blue this week he suggested a field trip to Lowe's to price out insulation. He figured the square footage of the house and measured the distance between the floor joists and counted how many floor joists there were under the house. And off we went. We stood in the Lowe's aisle and figured that we needed 75 bales of insulation at $26 a bale. The label made it appear that each bale contained one 7 foot strip of insulation. We were astounded to think it would cost $2000 to insulate the floor of our house. I turned the heat down and settled in for a long cold winter feeling sorry for the continued cold hands of my children.

Later in the week I was talking to my brother about insulation and how expensive it was. I told him that we figured it must be one of the more expensive parts of building. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. I told him we figured it would cost $2000 and so forth. Then he started laughing. He informed me that there are six 7 foot strips of insulation in each bale. We would only need 10 bales. He called Lowe's right then to confirm it!

Today Jeremy, Jeff and one of Jeff's friends put the insulation under the house. It only took them 3 hours and that includes breaks for lunch and breathing. And we have 3 bales of insulation to return. To prove that indeed air was coming through the floor....I have a layer of dust on the floor now that came up while they were working under the house. We turned the heat down again too. Now if our next oil bill is a little lower we will feel very successful.