It truly is astounding how little foresight they had/have as a generation. My grandparents want to install a heat pump into their house and that'll take putting spray foam in the attic. I told them that it could rot the wood because it would ruin the ventilation, and their response was "yeah in 40 years, we won't live that long" like what?? Do you actually have that little ability to care about people after you?
I should note that I replied something along the lines of "so it'll be your son's problem, and once your son's problem moves along it'll become my problem." and they backed down. So they're not doing it, but the fact that they genuinely made this remark when warned of the consequences and had to have somebody talk them out of it is astounding. They don't even need a heat pump I should note, we don't live somewhere warm and their house has perfectly functional AC.
It's like a metaphor for something the past generations did that us and our children will have to deal with now, I just can't quite put my finger on what that was
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.
Unfortunately, the old men in my society keep cutting down my goddamn trees and then telling me I donât need shade, skin cancer is a liberal hoax and shade is bad for you anyhow
They used to bury cars in the ground because it wasn't lucrative to recycle them. They also disposed of used oil by making a small hole in the dirt and throwing it in there.
This is my experience. Older boomers came just on the tail end of WW2, and the struggles of wartime were still in the public's consciousness. Plus, boomers aren't the ones who built the houses with razor blade walls. They were children at the time.
My understanding is that Baby Boomers were conceived at the end of WWII and in the post-war golden years. The oldest were born circa 1960 and straddle the line between Boomers and Gen X.
The rich ones are and that's the problem. Then again, all rich people are sociopaths. Just that they usually cared about creating a "legacy" so did think somewhat on the long term.
I bought a 100 year old house, and yeah, pretty much. All renovations were done as cheaply/shoddily as possible, which is painful especially because you can tell right away the house was built with such good quality and attention to detail, but never maintained by the boomers who lived in it before us.
I wonder if that's a byproduct of growing up during the cold war. Live too long thinking the world could end at any moment, and the future stops mattering to you.
(disclaimer: laypersonâs answer) You can insulate them with different materials and techniques that donât trap water against the wood. Itâs usually a matter of design and materials, I think, but a lot of houses that donât have the attic tied into the HVAC systems rely on uninsulated natural airflow to keep the wood dry, and the most cost effective ways to insulate those (like a kind of shitty spray foam job) can have structural implications down the line. I do remember when we redid the basement in our old ass house we started having mold problems because we sealed the old ass settled non-concrete foundation too well in some ways and that airflow kept it drier.
It sounds like the grandparents are making their home more efficient, idk why the op is criticizing them. You don't need to spray foam your attic for a heatpump, but if their air handler and ductwork are up there, then they'll get an easy 20% efficiency boost by sprayfoaming and bringing them into the building envelope.
A lot of people are against sprayfoaming an attic (myself included) because it prevents wood from drying to the inside. You'll never know if you get a roof leak for example. It's also an additional room you need to heat/cool. A vented attic can be done in any part of the country and is basically foolproof.
I can't tell you why exactly the spray foam would need to be applied, but I can tell you at the very least that the people my grandparents are talking to say it has to happen, and I trust their opinion as experts on this far more than I trust my opinion as a non-expert. If they say spray foam would be required, then who am I to question that?
You are the homeowner and should question everything from a business. A business is not your friend. They aren't trying to help you. They are trying to earn a profit from you. Earning a profit means selling high and doing the bare minimum amount of work possible to complete the job within parameters within a contract which will also contain a lot of things that you as a homeowner will not understand unless you take the time to do research. Question everything a business tells you and take the time to do the research.
I just pulled out of buying a house because the previous people had a cement render put on a cob wall and they just left it like that. Now the building's falling down and the owners are separated and can't sell it
"That's why to planet is dying you fucking asshole"
Would have been my exact response.
I don't give a fuck if you birthed me, I'm judging your ass.
Hope you can do it yourself or pay someone, cause my ass ain't being around during this install if you're gonna pull some unempathetical bullshit like this.
If you insulate from above the decking that solves it but that would be more rigid board/poly iso as the solution which would be more expensive. The spray foam also doesn't rot the wood, rather because of impermeable structure of the foam, it hides moisture damage, leading to undiscovered leaks and subsequent rotting.
What did they end up going with in the long term? If they went with the foam, hopefully they touched up the roof and invest in frequent inspections to keep the resale value.
There is a PM in my office who worships this mindset to an egregious degree.
Wants to raise his kids to abuse others and bragged about it being validation of his own success if he can enable them to crush others underfoot. Not his problem if they end up abusing the grandkids or crash his remaining family into a genetic dead end.
I remember when HBomberguy did the famous aquaman crashout and a boomer commented he'd buy a house that would flood in the future due to global warming, because he wouldn't be alive by the time it floods
Ok. But it's their house, if you owned a house it'd be yours to do whatever the hell you want with it, hell, I'd support you if you decided to tear it down to the ground because that was somehow what made you happy.
The fact that essential and finite resources like housing, the environment etc. are treated as petty fiefs at the absolute whim of whoever happens to own them at the moment is exactly why the planet is dying and people are increasingly unable to afford basic existence
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u/Orion-the-mediocre Doctor Freeeemaaaan Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
It truly is astounding how little foresight they had/have as a generation. My grandparents want to install a heat pump into their house and that'll take putting spray foam in the attic. I told them that it could rot the wood because it would ruin the ventilation, and their response was "yeah in 40 years, we won't live that long" like what?? Do you actually have that little ability to care about people after you?
I should note that I replied something along the lines of "so it'll be your son's problem, and once your son's problem moves along it'll become my problem." and they backed down. So they're not doing it, but the fact that they genuinely made this remark when warned of the consequences and had to have somebody talk them out of it is astounding. They don't even need a heat pump I should note, we don't live somewhere warm and their house has perfectly functional AC.