Replies

1. 
   DanH | Dec 19, 2009 11:38pm | #1

   Just put "Sweatin' to the
   Just put "Sweatin' to the Oldies" on the Victrola and do it by hand.

2. 
   roryhamish | Mar 28, 2010 03:49pm | #2

   home mare insulation blower

   I have made a home made insulation blower. You shoud buy a good size electric leaf blower and modify it .you have to take the large leaf suction end off the blower and reduce it to inch and 1/4 size and also the delivery end has to be reduced to (1 !/4) also.

   after you make these modifications You can buy about 30 fett of this size plastic hose it is sold to be used on sump pumps and is verry flexabe. also verry affordable and if you need an extension on the end of yoiur delivery hose you just fot another piece of hose on there and use some masking tape to hold the hoses to gether.

   You will need a box to put the celuose(old traeted newspapers) in and I made a box about 3ft long and about 2 ft high and 2 feet wide. The insulation material needs to be broken up with a paddle so that it will go through the blower and not plug it up.so I add about 1/3 of a bag of materials and break this up with a paddle before using the blower to put insulation in the walls.

   When doing the walls drill a inch and 1/2 whole in the walls , and at the end of the hose you use to fill the walls put some masking tape around the hose so that it fights snugly in the wlaa cavity to be filled. the end of the hose should be a tapered fit into the wall.

   If you drill a few wall cavites at the same time Cover the wholes with masking tape except for the one you are filing with insulation and once you finish filling a wall cavity cover the whole with masking tape untill a more permanet repair can be made to the wall.with gprock and filler .

   On the blower you shpuld have a 3 or 4 ft, suction hose and a 8 to 10 ft exhaust hose and if need sections can be adder to the delivery side of the hose.

   On the top of the box that holds the insulation. I made a board with a whole in it to hold the blower in place and I can do the job my self with out a helper.

   I had a contractor give me a estimater of doing my house and it was about 2000 dollars I bought the blower and modified it and bought the insulation and did the whole job for less than 700 dollars..

   The blower was filled up with dust inside of it and this corroded the electricall parts inside the blower and when I tried to use it the next year there was nothing happening due to the corrosion inside my leaf blower. I am going to add an other electricall motor to that and have my improved and modified blowe up and running soon.

   If you have question feel free to conatct me my e is [email protected].... Happy insulation everyone...

3. 
   cussnu2 | Mar 29, 2010 01:35pm | #3

   Why not just use to free ones from the retailer?  They'll let you use one for buying 20 bags of the stuff.

4. 
   Mark Anderson | Jun 17, 2010 08:09am | #4

   It probably never occurred to you that you can make your own cellulose insulation. The process is fast, safe and relatively easy. The insulation is just as good as or better than insulation you buy on the market. It is fire retardant and resists insects and rodents.

   insulation blowers

5. 
   weatherizemaine | Nov 15, 2010 06:01pm | #5

   Wasted time

   You completely wasted your time and money.  Cellulose in walls is no good unless densepackd.  I have insulated 200 homes in 2 years and a 2x4x8 bay should take about 25 lbs of insulation to be effective.  I be you didnt get 5 lbs in each cavity.  Good try though shoulda paid the 200 would have had it back in 5 years.  Now the 200-500 you spent you shoulda flushed.

1. 
   InsulationMachines | Nov 17, 2010 07:25pm | #6

   Agree!

   I agree with weatherizemaine... The idea that one can make a machine out of a leaf blower to satisfactorily fill a wall is good in theory, poor in results. It takes a lot of air/pressure to get cellulose to pack correctly.

   Cellulose settles and it should be packed in well...

1. 
   plinko | Dec 01, 2011 07:30pm | #7

   I dont agree

   I just did the leaf blower installation and it worked like a charm. Got density to spec on the bags.. just had to let it settle and top up a couple times, but it's tight -- rigged it up to have a short line in order to maximize the flow.   I think the guy that blew his own used less than 100% borate though, which corroded the motor. 

    A large industrial blower would've required a 1 inch line anyway, otherwise my rock lath would've been blown off the studs.

6. 
   joeh | Dec 01, 2011 10:05pm | #8

   Details please

   How pray tell does one make their own cellulose? To go along with the leaf blower machine I suppose?

   This is the wackiest thread in a long time. Where's Freddy Lugano on this one?

   Joe H

7. 
   sbandyk | Feb 26, 2020 04:52pm | #9

   re: comment #5
   Packing in more insulation into a space doesn't improve the efficiency of insulation, it decreases it. Insulation factor (reduction of thermal conductivity) in home insulation comes from the dead air space in the insulation material, not from the material itself. After all, lumber is made of cellulose.. but wood framing is a thermal BRIDGE .. and loose cellulose fill is an Insulator.

   ..into the weeds I go ;-)... energy (heat) can transmitted in different ways.. but with home insulation, molecular contact is what we're concerned with. In your walls, most of your heat will travel in or out via energy (heat) passed by air molecules striking other molecules of lower energy. Heat is transferred through molecular contact in much the say way momentum (energy) is transferred from a moving pool ball to a static pool ball when they collide.
   Heat transfer is a lot like sound propagation, and like with sound.. heat propagates better through materials as density increases.
   Even though different materials have different inherent rates of thermal transfer (delta-T), generally speaking high-density stuff (wood, stone, etc) tends to conduct heat a lot better than low-density stuff (air).
   This is why the best coolers (like Liquid Gas Dewars) are always metal vacuum containers. The vacuum between the inner and outer walls prevents heat transfer much more (no molecules knocking together in a vacuum) than the thin metal skin conducts heat (where the inner sleeve meets the outer).
   .. ok, enough nerd'ing out..

   The question shouldn't be "how much fill did you get into a space, by weight?". It should be "how little insulation, by weight, did you need to fill that space?". The objective is filling the space completely.. with as little solid material as required.

   .. another way to understand this.. dead dry air is generally considered to have a R rating of around 3.6/inch. Just properly sealing a 2"x4" framed cavity will net you R-13.3 of thermal insulation. (3.5"x3.6=13.3) "dry" is important because humidity adds mass/density and therefore increases air's thermal conductivity.

   Related is the talk of "packing" loose-fill (or any) insulation. It should only be packed-in enough to keep it in place.. and as little as possible so it stays in place. Too loose, especially in a vertical (wall) cavity, and it will settle, leaving voids.. too much and it's not very good at insulating. The voids, in this case, are a problem because it's assumed they'd increase air infiltration/exfiltration. We insulate instead of leaving open wall cavities because the insulation encourages 'deadness' (non-circulation) of the air in that space. Unfaced fiberglass insulation isn't air-tight (like closed cell foam).. but it does discourage air from passing through it, leaving the air between it's fibers mostly 'dead'.

1. 
   florida | Feb 26, 2020 07:31pm | #10

   Are you familiar with Joseph Lstiburek, Ph.D, P.Eng and Principal of Building Science Corporation? He says exactly the opposite of what you do. He's a big fan of dense pack walls. He's spent years testing wall assemblies, testifying as an expert witness and developing construction specifications. I think you'd be money ahead to read this link to BSC.

   https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-043-dont-be-dense