blown cellulose ?'s

[DuramaxPowered]

Okay, I'm planning to insulate my pole barn walls and ceiling with blown in cellulose. I've put 2x4 wall girts on the inside, just like the outside. I'm going to use OSB as an interior walll covering. This leaves me with a large cavity to fill since I don't have any verticle 2X6's like a garage style of building. Will these 8' wide, 15' tall walls fill properly or am I in for problems?

 

[trbomax]

They will fill,but they will also settle.Go ahead and fill them up,but dont finish them off because you should top them off in a couple months. Ive heard about blowing it in wet?? Not something I would want in my walls. IMO,celulose is for attics,to much monkey bussiness in walls.

 

[DuramaxPowered]

I've heard that if you blow it in under pressure, it won't settle..

I just want to make sure that there won't be a problem filling that width (8'), a guy that was over at my house said that it wouldn't work the way I have it now, and I have to re-frame the wall with studs 24" OC

 

[trythis]

To keep it from settling, you need to have it wet sprayed before you add the interior walls. The water activates the glue in the insulation and when it dries, BEFORE you put your wall surfaces up, it is solid and will not sag, unless it gets wet again.

How are you gonna support an interior 15' tall wall surface with 8' between nailing supports??

i would suggest 2x4s on 24" centers even if the wall depth is 12 inches thick. Just something to hold the interior wall up. Wet blown cellulose wont work on very deep walls. I think 6 or 7 inches as the deepest it will work, but dont quote me.

 

[DuramaxPowered]

I have interior wall girts (horizontal 2x4's) on 24" centers right now.... I was told that I'd need to remove those and put studs (verticle) every 24" for the insulation to fill properly.

 

[trythis]

Well that makes sense if you are filling from the top, but why they would want to I have no idea. They probably do not have a wet spray machine. I would call another insulator that can look at it from the wet spray approach. You still may need occasional vertical supports for the wet version to stick to. The flattening sweepers/rakes they use that run over studs would work horizontally as easily as vertically, I would think.

off topic, but why use horizontal supports? Vertical supports would have given your wall panels more support for hanging things on. I have just never seen this an dam just curious.

 

[jwith68]

Definitely check into the wet-blown process for your walls. We just had our new house done entirely with cellulose, wet-blown in the walls and rim joists, and dry blown overhead. I can see no reason why the wet-blown would not work very nicely between horizontal girts. An experienced installer can fill up just about any cavity with it, and it will be very tight.

Don't be concerned about the use of water for this. They use only a small amount, and it dries pretty quickly. All our exterior walls were 2x6, and were dried within 48 hours. It was another week before it was sheetrocked.

 

[mobetta]

i would think that if you install a vapor barrier and then the osb, then drill 1.5 holes at 4',9',13' off ground, about 3-4 horizontally per cavity, blow in from the bottom first, then middle, then top,you would have a good result. this method will dense pack in the cellulose vs loose fill blowing from top.

of course then you have the holes to cover.( french cleats around the entire shop??) and many 1.5 holes in vapor barrier to try to patch.

if you loose fill, leave access at top and plan on adding more in a year or so.

 

[DuramaxPowered]

I'm going to check into wet sprayed cellulose tomorrow and see what I can come up with.

 

[burleymike]

I will start off by saying insulation is one of my weak points. Does he need to maintain an air space between the insulation and the exterior metal? My neighbor has the exact same setup for his shop. One of the windows leaks and the insulation appears to hold the water. We figured this out because the metal panel below the window is rusting from the inside out.

 

[jklingel]

Check out housewright.com. Robert has been dense packing cellulose in 12" walls for decades, and his web site has instructions for doing so. Dense pack will not settle, as it is blown in more densely than that at which it naturally settles. As mentioned, I don't think it takes the wet spray long to dry, either, as their is very little water added to activate the adhesives. Be careful with the vapor barrier, as most places don't need one. They are typically reserved for zones 7 and 8. Buildingscience.com has maps of what areas should/should not have a true VB. You would likely be best off with the airtight drywall approach (ADA). Check into that on the site above, or greenbuildingadvisor.com. AIR SEALING is what is critical. Be especially careful around punctures, like pipes and electrical boxes. j

 

[D KRAGER]

I did exactly what you are planning in my pole building. I built the walls first before the drop ceiling. I put foam panels between the girts on the sidewalls, then vertical studded. Then blew in cellulose from the top. The next year I dropped the ceiling and left the wall cavity open to the attic. I'm getting ready to blow the insulation in the attic, that way if any in the wall has settled, when I blow the attic it will filter down the wall and fill it back up.