Spent 4 hours on a crawl space that should have taken 45 minutes

Got a call for a new drop in a house built in the 80s. The crawl space looked normal from the hatch, but once I got in there, it was a solid wall of old, blown-in insulation. I mean, it was like a gray snowdrift, three feet deep in places. Had to dig a trench with my hands and a piece of scrap wood just to find the sill plate to run the line. Every time I moved, more of the stuff would collapse into the path I just made. My fish tape kept getting buried. The homeowner thought I was crazy when I came up for air covered head to toe in dust. What should have been a simple pull turned into a full afternoon of fighting that mess. What's the best way you guys deal with a packed insulation crawl space without wrecking the stuff?

3 comments

3 Comments

robin8361mo ago

Man, that stuff is the worst, you gotta just suit up and push it aside.

elizabeth_gonzalez1mo ago

Seriously? It's not like we're dealing with toxic waste. What even is "that stuff"? Sometimes you can just ignore it and it goes away on its own.

campbell.logan27d ago

Honestly, I gotta say you might be overthinking this whole thing. Crawl spaces with insulation are part of the job, so maybe just accept the extra time and the mess without acting like it's some nightmare scenario. Tbh, a little elbow grease and a dust mask never killed nobody, and the homeowner's paying you for the hours anyway.