In January 2025, I started the process of changing the insulation in the attic. It is now May 30, 2026, and I’m almost finished. This may be be most grueling project I’ve ever done. Minimum clearance in the attic is 14½ inches, meaning a major part of the job was crawling. It also gets somewhat hot up there in the summer, and there was, of course 50+ years of accumulated dust and dirt up there.
Here are the main tools I used:
Nitrile gloves to protect my hands from fiberglass insulation and general dirt. These could be rinsed out and used twice sometimes. If I was doing a lot of crawling, one pair shredded after just a couple hours, though.
On the right, gloves. Then coveralls that I got from a flea market for $5. I used the same coveralls for the entire project. Never washed. An old shirt. I’ll discard it after the project is finished. And underwear. No pants, it could be triple-digit temperatures up there.
A KF-94 mask. I sometimes used a KN-95 mask, or regular surgical mask. The particular mask above lasted for weeks or maybe even months.
I moved various boards and 2×4’s around to have a place to put supplies, and also to have a place to squat or lie on. In the whole project, not once did I step on the gypsum board ceiling, which would likely have given way. (When we had our kitchen remodeled, a worker stepped through the ceiling.) This picture was taken in the spacious part of the attic. It would have been tough to take pictures in the cramped areas.
About 15 years ago, I had put down some OSB panels in the attic so that it could used as a storage area. I used an electric drill to unscrew those panels one at a time, clean out the old insulation, and then, when new insulation was installed, to screw the panels back into place.
A pen to label the panels so that they’d go back in the right place. Because of the irregular nature of the joists, braces, and risers, most of the panels were unique.
Sometimes, I’d find nails embedded in the joists, so removed them with a crowbar so I wouldn’t snag on them later.
A can to hold any metal found for later recycling. There was a lot of scrap left by the builders – wood, tar paper, stapes, screws, nails, etc.
In the tighter areas, I needed to bring my own light. A flashlight or headlamp just wouldn’t have cut it.
Once an area between joists was open, I could rake up insulation with this. The head expands to the width of the channel if necessary, or collapses for tighter quarters. The handle is about 3 feet long, and extends to about 5 feet. The rake was also useful for cramming insulation in where it was too cramped to crawl.
I made this tool to extract bits of insulation from places that the rake couldn’t reach.
Garbage bags, lots of garbage bags. I’d gather the insulation with my gloved hands and pack it into garbage bags. There were dozens stuffed full in the course of the project, disposed of any time we had space in our 32-gallon trash cart.
After getting the big pieces of insulation, I vacuumed the remaining dust and dirt up.
I didn’t get a brush until late in the project, but it turned out to be extremely helpful in getting caked-on dust.
This tool, with an adjustable head, helped me vacuum in tight places.
I got this set of 3 extension tubes for the vacuum, which let me reach the edge without having to crawl closer than 8 feet from it.
Sometimes, I’d find holes or rat-bitten ceiling, and patched these with joint compound.Scissors for cutting insulation to size.
