Say what??

Since my basement is a mess with everything piled in the middle, I decided to take the opportunity to have the space between the mud sills and the first floor spray foamed. The builder made a lame attempt to stuff that area with insulation, and hardly bothered with the vapour barrier. I'm sure it's been a huge source of heat loss in the winter.


I called two companies for quotes.  The guy that owned the second company called me back within a few minutes.  He immediately gave me the hard sell, and tried to convince me to spray foam the entire basement wall instead of just the top (exposed) portion.  I swallowed my annoyance with that, booked an appointment to have him come to give me a quote (that night!) and prepared myself to refuse the hard sell.

Later on, the guy arrived.  I showed him to the basement and right away he could see that I'd had problems.  He started to tell me that he was in the renovation business before, but got out of it because nobody ever did the job right.  But, he felt that he had to tell me that he could see that a number of things had been very clearly done wrong.  He started to lecture me about how they had to be repaired, and I had to interrupt him to remind him that he was there to give me a quote to spray foam the tops of the basement walls.

He then went about telling me about the complex job of spray foaming, and why my basement in particular would be a big challenge.  In the next ten minutes, he said - and I kid you not - "how do I tell this so that you'll understand" 13 times.  Or more.  I started counting that particularly endearing phrase after I'd heard it two or three times too many.  I did try at one point to tell him that I am a somewhat intelligent human being  Another time, I explained to him that I had managed to do a lot of the work around the house myself.  He ignored that, and continued to talk down to me as though I was a complete and total twit.

The kicker came when I informed him that I would not be hiring him if my basement was 'so complicated' that he could only spray 2/3 of what I wanted done.   We discussed temporarily removing two vents that were blocking his way, for which he suggested I hire somebody to do it for me.  That way - and I quote - I can sit back with my feet up and watch my favorite soap opera.

He left shortly after that.  I suspect the look in my eyes may have encouraged him to go.  I doubt he noticed the relation to his statements and my walking to the door at the bottom of the stairs and waving him upstairs and out.  Either way, he'll not be getting the job.

The other company ended up calling me back.  They'll come out to give me a quote soon, and I'm wondering if I need to ask a male friend to be with me when they come. Apparently I'm too dumb to know what I want without one.  Instead, I suspect I'm going to skip hiring this job out.  I'm heading over to the Mecca (AKA Home Depot) tonight to inquire about the rental tools and materials that I'd need to do it myself.