Skip to main content

The benefits of blown-in cellulose

You don't have to demolish your walls to add insulation to your home. 

Many people have asked me about affordable techniques for adding some degree of soundproofing to existing construction. And if you live in a home or an apartment with hollow walls, you might want to blow some insulation into them.

At the very least, it will reduce the amplifying effect. That's because when you have drywall nailed on top of hollow studs, it behaves acoustically like the head of a giant drum and it echoes. And this problem plagues millions of American homes. It will not eliminate low-frequency engine noise that penetrates your building frame, such as construction equipment or large truck engines.

Here's how you can remedy this echo situation. You can add insulation without even removing the walls by getting a blower and some cellulose insulation, drilling some round holes into your existing drywall, inserting the pressure nozzle into the open space, and blowing the insulation between each stud.

Cellulose is the best loose material for blow-in insulation. 

Usually you'll find two options for blown-in insulation: fiberglass, and cellulose fiber. From my own experience, I recommend cellulose fiber and I've used it myself. It's denser, it dampens sound more effectively, it's less toxic than fiberglass, and it adds temperature insulation. Just say no to fiberglass!

In the USA, you can buy cellulose insulation (or if you insist, fiberglass) at Lowe's for less than $10 per package (covering 40 square feet each) and borrow their blower for free. (This may not be feasible for those of you in the UK who read this blog.)

This 13-minute video from Dr. Energy Saver shows you the benefits of using cellulose insulation, how it's made, and answers some of your questions about it.


This YouTube video from Bondo Built shows how you can go to a big box store, rent the blowing machine, and use plastic sheets over the openings in your walls to blow in dense cellulose. 

Remember, if you already have walls in place, you'll need a round drill to remove a small piece of drywall between each stud so the spray nozzle can access the interior of the wall. (See this video.)

When you're done, just replace the round piece of drywall, then tape and mud it, sand it, and repaint it so the wall looks like new again.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blow-in cellulose and your hollow walls

It's not too late to insulate.  A few years ago, most American homes had no insulation in them. When a homeowner did insulate, it was usually with fiberglass batts. Then along came some better products. One of them is blow-in cellulose insulation. Does it work? I can attest to this: YES. I've used it in walls and ceilings, and it works quite well for airborne noise. If you live in an uninsulated home and you hear your neighbors voices coming through your walls or ceilings, cellulose will dampen that noise or mute it entirely. It doesn't work for all types of noise. But it doesn't eradicate impact noise. You might still hear the sounds of someone walking across a bare hardwood floor with their shoes on, for example, or hear wall-mounted cabinets opening and closing. There are other solutions for that, and by combining different solutions you can control most structural noise and create more privacy. Low cost Blow-in insulation is inexpensive. You can hire a
Post a Comment
Read more

Combining QuietRock and Green Glue together

Two great products work great together. As I've mentioned before, I'm experimenting around with ways to reduce some of the noise problems in my apartment on a tight budget. I think I've found the best combination to date: adding a layer of QuietRock 510 over an existing layer of gypsum drywall with a layer of Green Glue inbetween. This was sort of the best of both worlds: taking a pre-made, sound-dampened drywall and then adding it over a powerful, viscous layer of glue....onto drywall that was already on the wall studs. No demo needed. In this project, I basically added two sound-dampening layers to the original 1950s drywall (one layer in the QuietRock and the other layer created by the Green Glue) to address " flanking noise ": feet, furniture, and shoes pounding on the bare floor of my downstairs neighbors' apartment. The amount of banging, bashing, and foot-stomping sounds coming from their very "wooden" apartment has been severe, and I&
10 comments
Read more

How to measure decibels and frequency with the Decibel Meter app

 Frequency matters When you're dealing with a noise issue, the frequency of that noise is just as important as the decibel level. A decibel is the loudness of the sound, and measuring decibels can alert you when a sound is more than just a nuisance, but dangerous to your health. However, decibel levels on their own don't tell the whole story. The frequency of the sound is also very important. The frequency is a measure of how many sound waves per second are produced by a sound, and determines its pitch. A low-frequency sound might be really annoying, but it might not be that loud. The lower frequencies are typically below 150 Hz, and often sound like a deep bass sound that's not necessarily loud, but the vibrations from that sound can travel through the entire frame of a building and disrupt sleep or cause stress. Knowing both the decibel level and the frequency of an unwanted sound can help you determine the right soundproofing solution. For example, a low-frequency nois
Post a Comment
Read more