What is Blown in Wet Cellulose Insulation?
Blown in wet cellulose insulation is made from recycled newspaper, basically paper pulp. This makes blown in wet cellulose insulation a wonderful Green product. This is an excellent form of insulation for a frame built house. The cellulose is blown in wet in the cavities of the walls under pressure to make the product stick to the walls and fill in the studs of the frame. When the insulation dries it stays in place and is very dense. Blown in wet cellulose insulation is up to 25% more dense then fiberglass insulation. It can also fill in voids that fiberglass is not very good at doing such as around light switches and corners of the home. This will save you money on heating and cooling cost over the typical fiberglass insulation. There is also little to no waste. Whatever falls on the floor, the installer can place back into the blower.
This is definitely the product to use if you can not afford the up front cost of 2×6 construction. Blown in wet insulation will be great in 2×4 construction like in a gut renovation for the reasons mentioned above. However if you can do 2×6 construction whether new build or doing an addition, I highly recommend doing so. It will save you a lot of money in the long run. You may have contractors who will tell you that you don’t need to do 2×6 with blown in cellulose insulation, and they are right. To be up to code standards you don’t “need” to do that but you can if you want to especially in areas where you get lots of snow or where it gets very hot.
Do you think that your house with walls filled with newspaper will burn right down to the ground? Think again, the cellulose is treated with borax so that it will not readily burn. Also the fact that when installed correctly the product is so dense that it doesn’t leave much room for oxygen to feed a fire to keep on burning if a fire were to break out. Blown in wet insulation meets or sometimes exceeds regulations to give it a fire wall designation.
One of the other many virtues of blown in wet cellulose insulation is the fact that it helps with noise control. If you build your home on a busy noisy street, this could be the way to go. The high density of the product helps it to absorb sound.
Well what about bugs? Aren’t there bugs that love to eat wood products like termites, don’t little animals like to nest in them also? The blown in cellulose insulation is treated with borax to defend your home from insects, rodents and it even inhibits fungus and mold growth.
Believe it or not there are many installers who will guarantee in writing the savings that you will receive on your heating and cooling bills for up to three years from using cellulose insulation. In most cases cellulose cost about 5% to 15% more then fiberglass insulation. However in certain parts of the country it cost about 5% to 10% less then fiberglass! I’d say that this puts all those stacks of newspapers to great use!
