I have nearly 1,000 square feet of attic space so this is a major source of heat loss.  I’m also near the landing pattern of the jets landing at Salt Lake International airport whenever we have a north wind.  This is the prevailing wind pattern and happens more often in the summer.

AttiCat insulation blower loaded by the Owens Corning Panther.

To insulate against heat loss and noise, I chose Owens Corning AttiCat blown-in insulation from Home Depot.  When you buy at least 10 bags of insulation, you get the blower free for 24 hours.  The blower is out for rental quite a bit in the winter so I devised a plan.  I went in Friday at about 5:00.  You are supposed to be able to do 1,000 square feet in an hour and a half (maybe if you are experienced at this).  I figured if I got the blower at 5:00 on Friday, I should easily have it back by 5:00 the next day.  And perhaps no one else would get it before me.  People with day jobs don’t usually get off much earlier that that.

The guy at Home Depot thought I was crazy when he found out I didn’t have a truck.  I have a car with a hitch and haul a 4 x 8 trailer.  I use ratcheting straps to hold everything down and they work great.  The top half of the machine fit in the rear seat and my job was much easier.

The guy that helped me load it was still nervous.  He kept warning me that they wouldn’t be responsible if anything happened to the blower.  He even told me that the replacement cost of the machine was a thousand dollars.  I got it strapped down tight along with the two barrels full of a 100 feet of hose.  I made it safely home.

The next morning, I had my son-in-law, John, help me.  The temperature was in the twenties with a breeze blowing so I put the blower just inside the studio door.  That kept me out of the wind.  John was in the attic so he was fine.

Actually, John had insulated coveralls and a disposable white jump suit.  With the goggles, air mask, big rubber boots with steel shanks, and the blue nitrile gloves, he looked like he was prepared to detox a radioactive waste site.  Oh, but that’s what he does for a living.

I was concered about my back loading 15 bags of insulation into the blower.  It wasn’t as hard as I figured.  The bags are covered with plastic.  The insulation tries to expand and stretches the plastic tight.  There is a dotted line around the middle of each bag which is cut with a knife.  I also used a butcher knife to stab around that cut line.  The bales were easier to break in half that way.  And they weren’t that heavy so feeding the machine was easy.

When you push the half bales into the machine, a knife catches the plastic and cuts it freeing the insulation.  You just push it into the machine and pull out the plastic wrapping.  Paddles rotating in opposite directions slowly break apart the bales and fluff them up.  Then the insulation is blow though the 100 feet of hose hooked up to the machine. There is a detailed instructional video here at the bottom of the page.

We both had radios for communications.  Occasionally, I let him know how many bags were left so he could pace himself.  It took about four hours including a lunch break.  I had the machine back at Home Depot by 3:00 so there was time to spare.

For R-30 insulation, I needed 15 inches of blow-in (which settles to 12).  It looked closer to 24 inches when I checked the job.  An attic door was added to complete the project.  In the spring, we will be putting in ducting for a swamp cooler to keep the studio from getting too warm.  This will give me easy access without having a hole in my ceiling that lets in sound.

– Rich Pulham

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 10:25 am and is filed under Studio construction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.