so I know there are a lot of handy people on this site and I'm trying to learn more each day about how to fix up my house, etc.

Some time ago I discovered that the house I've been living in for 7 years has NO INSULATION in part of the attic. The portion of the house with no insulation was originally a garage but it was converted into a bedroom/hallway/utility room/2nd bathroom (2nd bathroom still in the works!) before we bought the house.

I always noticed that part of the house was hotter than the rest but always thought it was because there was no ventilation in the attic over that section of the house. When I re-roofed my house a couple years ago I installed a ridge vent over the entire house and that helped a little but it was still warmer in those rooms.

Anyways..I'm making this story long..I bought about 12 bags of blow in insulation that should adequately cover the area (approx. 300 sq. ft.) but I did not get a blower to blow it in. I was thinking I could use a big plastic barrell I have to break up the blocks of insulation into little chunks then just spread it out manually over the uninsulated portion of my attic. In my mind I can't see why it wouldn't work..it will obviously be more time consuming..but is there any reason why this is just a dumb idea? I will have to do it early in the morning as it's summer time in southeast TX and that attic can get HOT. I will also check to see if there are soffit vents around that section of the house...

It's a non-optimal solution but I've installed small areas by hand. Unless I'm mistaken lots of places provide the blower if you buy sufficient bales of insulation??? Either free or fairly cheap.

The house I bought last year had no insulation, anywhere. So this was the big solution for most of it. If I remember right, HD gives you a blower for 4 hours if you buy 10 bales and for 24 hours if you buy 20 bales.

If you have a shop vac, you can clean it out real well, take out the filter and then switch the hose onto the exhaust. Break up a bale (or as much as you can fit) into the vac and you have instant blower.

Duchess for the win!

I bought it from Lowes and I think they only offer the free blower if you buy 25 bales.

I don't have a shop vac but my dad does....although I may be in trouble for keeping his pipe wrench too long (i used it to install a 10" deep sink to replace our pitiful 5.5" deep one. the wife was very happy.)

If you do the shop vac method, make sure that you feed slowly so you dont clog the impeller drive.

Therein lies the rub. How would it work out? I'd expect you'd have to tilt the barrel of the vac to "feed" the impeller somewhat? And would the flow be correct for such a purpose? My shop vac doubles as a blower and the dang thing'd blow the insulation all over the place. Neat idea though if it works.

I may use sort of a hybrid method of blowing into the far corners and spreading by hand the areas that are closer to the middle. getting a good amount of consistent cover is the end goal.

When using blown insulation the blower is an important part of the product. It doesn't just spread it, it also fluffs it. The fluffier it is the higher the R value. However you spread it, do your best to get as much loft into the material as possible.

Every 4 or 5 years I buy, fix, live in, and sell a house. Home Depo and insulation is a way of life.

It's still a REALLY good idea to use a blower. Insulation works by trapping air. If you don't have enough air in the insulation, then it doesn't do its job. (Hey, up here in the Canadian prairies, we take our insulation seriously. )

The blowers work by throwing the insulation material, and the real ones blow a LOT harder than your shop vac will.

I'd still use a larger tube, and one that doesn't have so many obstacles in it, like a shunk of 2" PVC tube from the plumbing section. You could probably use a "T" fitting to rig up a feed mechanism too, and it'd cost less than $10

Don't get me wrong, a blower is the way to go, but a vac is just another option. I have a 15 gallon capacity vacuum but still opt to do the blower. They're not that expensive considering what a well insulated house will save you. They pay for themselves very quickly.

Good tools always pay for themselves quickly. I just about entered nirvana the first time I used an airless piston paint sprayer.

yeah well I'm about to paint my house too so anything to make that job quicker/easier is of interest to me .

I'm going to get the insulation in the attic one way or another this weekend and I'm not opposed to renting a blower if needed....I went up again tonight and it looks like my initial observation of the attic wasn't 100% correct. There is fiberglass insulation over half of the area I thought was uninsulated but there are gaps between it and the rafters so those areas will just need the gaps filled in and a little over the top for a good even blanket. The other half has no insulation, but there is also another section that goes over my living room that just has the fiberglass insulation with gaps again...the rest of the house is fiberglass insulation that has been filled in and coated over with the blown in stuff.

I'm also interested in a low cost active cooling solution for the attic as well. The roof originally had the "whirly birds" as I call them...and when I re-roofed I put a ridge vent across the whole house but left the whirly birds there...I'd like to install a fan in the attic to actively remove the heat which I think would be a better solution than a radiant barrier (since I'm in southeast TX keeping heat IN my house is rarely a concern). Done properly it would dramatically reduce the heat in my attic but placement will be key...I've got to put the fan somewhere where it would be able to get a draft going through the entire attic instead of just sucking air from the ridge vent/etc. and then blowing it right back out through the fan...

This is something I don't know tons about, but I'll hazard a guess and I'm sure someone else will get you a better answer.

Most of the houses I've worked with are Victorian and the floorplans have a kind of air conditioning built into them such that the front door, doors on the interior and the back door all line up so you can open the front and back door and have fantastic air flow. Perhaps this idea could work for your attic if there is room for a vent on one side of the house and a fan on the opposite side, ideally you could then pull air the length of the house.

Your attic should have proper soffits in the eaves to allow for airflow. Putting on a proper ventilation cap on the roof itself shoud be more than adequate for ventilation to cool it.

I'll admit though that I know a lot more about keeping the place warm than keeping it cool.

I know the ridge vent is much more efficient..I just know that if I could accelerate the flow of air coming through the attic the heat would never be allowed to build up as it does right now. It's really just a wish of mine right now..I'll coat the rest of the attic in insulation, re-caulk all the windows, replace weather stripping..then use the rest of the caulk to prep the house for painting....on to the next project...

I used my leaf blower. It is a dual use blower that can also work as a leaf vacuum. I taped a 4" flexible irrigation pipe to the vacuum side. It worked great!

sweet..thanks for chiming in. I went up there last night to lay down some plywood so I can walk around safely and also so I can have more storage space up there.

I saw a bug flying around and couldn't identify it until it landed close to me...it was a flying roach! I'm more than a little creeped out about going back up there but the attic and house is going to get bombed soon. I'm no stranger to roaches, but flying roaches are just too much.

How about a nice video of you running from a lil ole flyin bug and screaming like a big sissy-pants? Just kidding. I freak out a bit when a UFB lands on me.

We're having the whole 17 year cicada thing right now and I can't help but laugh when our 6 year old boy - who'll pick them up and play with them - runs screaming for help when one is coming at him.

I'm usually on the other side of the video camera these days...since you enjoyed Joseph's ABC's I have another video on my web page of him displaying his knowledge of animal noises. and no we haven't taught him what a roach says.

My Site <-- go to the embedded media player and click "Joseph's Animal Noises & More" in the playlist.

You'll be lovin' those years from now. I remember when my wife and I first realized our little monkey understood way more than he could convey to us. Sitting eating dinner and mentioned the telephone. The kid turns and points to the phone. We think "Nah . . . couldn't be." and started to name things and by and large he knew what stuff was even though he couldn't talk. I don't remember his age but we were pretty much floored. Thanks again for sharing.

well I got about half the insulation in where there is no insulation but then it started getting hot up in there so I am going to wait till 8pm or so tonight to start up again...I meant to wake up at 6 but went from about 7 to 10. The shop vac I borrowed wouldn't work as there is a a plastic non-removable grate over the blower portion. So I have been breaking it up with my (gloved) hands into a large rubbermaid container, making sure it's good and fluffy, then spreading it out in the attic. I purposely did the hardest parts first so to be honest I'm probably more than halfway done with the no insulation zone. Once that's done it should go pretty quickly spreading the insulation around where there is already fiberglass insulation. all in all it's going better than expected and I can't wait to get it all coated in the stuff.