stuff found in ceilings
14 JUNE 2010
Previous owners of the house appear to have added blown in dry cellulose sometime around the 70s or 80s. I’m guessing this based on the old-but-not-too-old appearance, and the auspicious use of cellulose for home retrofitting following the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s. I am doubtful that it was installed in 1880, when the house was built.
From some quick reading, there are several advantages to blown cellulose insulation: it’s effective (R-value of about 3.5 if well installed), it’s cheap, it is non-flammable, it can be made from recycled products such as newspaper or cotton fiber. A quick search of some blown cellulose products out there show that cellulose is basically plant fibers, i.e. carbon, hydrogen and oxygen treated with an inorganic salt like boric acid (boron). Boron is one of the elemental nutrients used to fertilize apple trees, but here it acts as a fire retardant. Cellulose is pretty safe stuff- which is good, since Marta and I have been swimming in it the last couple days.
The drawbacks? Cellulose tends to settle with gravity over time and leave portions of the walls with weakened thermal barrier. Also, it can pretty much be blown around any thing that sits in the space where it is to go. This was apparent as we removed the plaster and lath from the old ceilings. We were treated to a small rain of miscellany buried in the insulation between ceiling joists. This included letters, shoes, pants, a potato masher, a whetstone, metal piping, various hand tools, Christmas ornaments, some toy train cars, an old G.E. fan, a cane, and several empties of Narragansett. The pants DID appear be pre-bell bottom, so I think there's a possibility that the insulation was added in the 1960s.
Down the road (before fall) I think we’ll be re-filling as much as we can with something similar -- once we can think of some weird stuff to stick up there.
Previous owners of the house appear to have added blown in dry cellulose sometime around the 70s or 80s. I’m guessing this based on the old-but-not-too-old appearance, and the auspicious use of cellulose for home retrofitting following the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s. I am doubtful that it was installed in 1880, when the house was built.
From some quick reading, there are several advantages to blown cellulose insulation: it’s effective (R-value of about 3.5 if well installed), it’s cheap, it is non-flammable, it can be made from recycled products such as newspaper or cotton fiber. A quick search of some blown cellulose products out there show that cellulose is basically plant fibers, i.e. carbon, hydrogen and oxygen treated with an inorganic salt like boric acid (boron). Boron is one of the elemental nutrients used to fertilize apple trees, but here it acts as a fire retardant. Cellulose is pretty safe stuff- which is good, since Marta and I have been swimming in it the last couple days.
The drawbacks? Cellulose tends to settle with gravity over time and leave portions of the walls with weakened thermal barrier. Also, it can pretty much be blown around any thing that sits in the space where it is to go. This was apparent as we removed the plaster and lath from the old ceilings. We were treated to a small rain of miscellany buried in the insulation between ceiling joists. This included letters, shoes, pants, a potato masher, a whetstone, metal piping, various hand tools, Christmas ornaments, some toy train cars, an old G.E. fan, a cane, and several empties of Narragansett. The pants DID appear be pre-bell bottom, so I think there's a possibility that the insulation was added in the 1960s.
Down the road (before fall) I think we’ll be re-filling as much as we can with something similar -- once we can think of some weird stuff to stick up there.
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Save the potato masher for Thanksgiving!
ReplyDeleteYup - I hear Liz has volunteered to make the turkey this year. Andrew has volunteered to BE the turkey!
ReplyDelete