Being Capable...

We had our home inspected prior to purchasing. Diagnosis: Duct in the attic supplying 80% of the house was shot.

I thought maybe the inspector was a little cuckoo, so we got a second opinion. And a third. Yes, and even a fourth.

For once in my life, every single opinion agreed; the "flex" duct had to go. Who knows how much energy we were losing when they looked like this:

And this picture is actually on the better side of the house. The other half of the house had insulation completely split open and exposing the duct. No wonder our bills had been so high!

After numerous bids I was disappointed at how much we were going to have to fork over to get them switched out. We were complaining to a contractor friend that Steve worked for in high school and he nonchalantly mentioned we should just do it ourselves. It's not rocket science, it was just really crappy work. A light when off in my head and I immediately started asking every question I could to understand if it was really in the realm of a DIY project.

After the conversation I was racking my brain as to how I was going to convince my anti-home project husband that we should take this on. To my surprise, he brought it up and suggested we tackle it. Let it be known that although he is usually a willing participant, rarely is he a volunteer. I won't lie, it was pretty attractive!!

When we started bidding out one of our heat/ac units I talked with them about replacing the flex duct. One guy was so willing to share his information, he offered to purchase all the materials for us as well as use his nifty tool to complete the job. Jackpot.

We chose a weekend to work in the attic and completely lucked out when it was unseasonably chilly with a high of 62. For 4 hours we sifted through the blown-in insulation as we unattached and reattached 6 lines of ductwork. Just like the contractor siad, it's not rocket science. But boy did it suck. We sat and crawled through an attic that only have 5 feet clearance in the highest part. Steve wanted to keep talking about the cruise we are going to go on with the money that we saved by doing it ourselves. At times it was the only happy place we could find!

That night as our stiff bodies lie in bed we were recounting the days events and chuckled at the thought that we just replaced our ductwork. (Which is a long ways from where we started in our first house, especially for Steve!) It was a good reminder that we are capable individuals, much more capable than we ever give ourselves credit for. We often limit ourselves based on our current knowledge or skill sets, even more so our mental block against activities we regard as out of our reach. Don't get me wrong, I know that there are plenty of tasks that require special training and should only be completed by those trained individuals. But more often than not we push off tasks that we are fully capable of completing if we only tried. Knowledge is out there and more readily available than ever before and we have opportunity to learn and gain any skill set we desire.

The bottom line is, we are capable. We are capable to do anything we set our mind to if only we acquire a desire and determination to follow through. And if anyone wants to replace flexduct, I'm more than happy to offer some tips!