removing cellulose insulation
imallthumbs
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
I am remodeling and will be turning a conventional ceiling into a cathedral ceiling. But… there is cellulose insulation that has to be removed. I am thinking about dragging my piping my Delta shop vac outside and connecting it with flexible black sewer pipe but I am not sure how to handle the bagging. I expect that the bags would fill in a heartbeat and require constant emptying. Any thoughts?
iamallthumbs
Replies
You could reuse the old stuff by blowing it up into the rafters.
Get one of the garbage can lid separators and put that before the dust collector. And you can line the can with plastic bags.
If you can get the advanced search to work there has been a discussion of doing this.
we've tried that, and it doesn't really work. the volume of material is too great and it just takes forever. we now have our duct cleaner suck it out with his truck mounted vac with a 6" hose and then right into 6 yard garbage bags in the dumpster.
otherwise, drop the ceilings and shovel it or cut a hole in the ceiling and drop it into cans.
carpenter in transition
Mike, I had to remove an attic full of rock wool for a remodel. I used a dust collector hooked up with a 4" pvc pipe. The pipe was connected to a length of 4" hose and was used as a giant wand. The out feed hose went to a dumpster that was covered with a tarp. I removed about 95% of the insulation in a couple of hours. I did not try to reuse the rock wool, new fiberglass was installed.
mike
Is the insulation clean or dirty with debris? If clean, you can output from a DC impeller into any large suitable container. Also, is it clean enough that you can use it in another attic area for more insulation? If it is dirty (nails, roofing debris), then you will want a separator unit before the impeller. Nails through the impeller make an ugly noise, and sparks or static can be a fire hazard. With the separator, the heavy nasties will fall into the trash can first, You can increase capacity by replacing the bottom DC bag with one of those 42 gallon contractors bags. I took 40-50 bags of that stuff out of my attic this way so it can be done. I put 15 years of wear and tear on my DC-650 in a month.
Just hire the guy who blows it in to suck it out.
Worth any price, IMO. I have already eaten my life's quotient of that stuff.
Excellence is its own reward!
Thanks for your ideas. I got the job done yesterday. It was a long day but it is done. I used my two bag Delta shop vac and attached a Christmas tree bag to the bottom one. To prevent it from blowing up like a ballon, I put it in a blue tarp that I tied into a tube. I bought 20 feet of 4-inch black plastic drain pipe and ran it up to the second floor window. I filled the bag three times and transferred the contents to three 55-gallon drums for reuse in my shop. I would recommend this to anyone. A commercial insulation installer quoted me $500 to do the job (when he had the time). Even if I wore out the shop vac, I am still ahead lots of money.
Over and out.
Mike