Attic Insulation Title Bout! Cellulose Insulation vs Blown Fiberglass Insulation

hi guys Andy Hague here with Enceladus in Pittsburgh and what we're gonna do here real quick is to show you a quick comparison between the effectiveness of cellulose insulation here in the left and blown fiberglass insulation here in the right we get called out to repair and make more energy-efficient comfortable a lot of homes with this stuff in it and I'm going to show you why here in just a minute so what I'm gonna do is turn on this timer we're gonna look at these two digital thermometers and I'm gonna turn the heat lamp on and we're gonna see what happens over the course of a couple of minutes so right now as you can see both of the starting temperatures are just about even this 173 degrees the blowing fiber glasses of 72 degrees now put background on the effectiveness ratings of insulation insulation is rated with an r-value when our value means is resistance to heat flow per inch of a given material in this case the r-value of cellulose insulation is about 3.7 per inch and the r-value of blown fiberglass is about 2.5 per inch and that's nearly a 50% advantage an insulating ability for the cellulose verse is the blown fiberglass so in essence the higher the R value the better the insulation so a little background is well on cellulose insulation what this is is a recycled paper fiber and it's treated with a material called boric acid which is non-toxic and the boric acid makes the cellulose incapable of growing things like mold in it makes it incapable of catching fire and it also makes it an irritant to things like bugs and rodents and things like that you get less of those issues in your attic let's check in here right now with our temperatures and after just over a minute we see that the blown fiberglass is now up to 81 degrees and the cellulose hasn't budged so you can see that the heat is passing readily much more easily through the blown fiberglass and what would happen in your home the way that you can relate to this is if this was your roof in the summertime and the Sun was gonna come down and heat it just like our little heat lamp here it would quickly heat up your attic and then that heat from your attic radiates down into the rooms below making the upper floors of your room or I'm sorry your home uncomfortable and at that point the air conditioner turns on its gonna fight that heat game coming from your attic all day long driving up your air conditioning costs but if you had something like this in erotic the heat would stay in the attic space as opposed to transferring down into the rooms below and that's gonna keep the home much more comfortable or cool throughout the day and also keep your AC bills lower now to minute point we can see that the fiberglass is up to 88 degrees and the cellulose still hasn't budged so at some point that heat will start to work its way down through the cellulose it just takes more time to do that and that that's the delay factor that's what gives you the boost in the energy efficiency and comfort levels another thing that we like with this product is that with cellulose in the wintertime after you blow it in it kind of compact and that allows the cold air to sit down on top of it rather than fall down through it like with the blown fiberglass this stuff is just so airy and light it's almost like popcorn if you will it allows cold air to fall down through it and then meet warm air coming up from the ceiling below and that forms convection loops inside the material further lowering its r-value precisely the time you need it most so just over the three minute mark what we now have is the fiberglass at 95 degrees and the cellulose has bumped up one degree to 73 so if you have somebody come out and you're gonna get an insulation estimate and the guy is recommending blown fiberglass because it's maybe what his franchise tells him to put in or maybe it's what his dad or uncle showed him back in the 70s or 80s or the day he's got to have a justification for why he wants to use something that is clearly inferior in performance to this the other element is that cellulose is a much more sustainable green product it's made from recycled materials and it takes much less energy to manufacture we call it embodied energy fiberglass insulation is a mined mineral it has to be heated up in furnaces and then the material is spun and so forth and that just requires much more energy so the cellulose not only performs better but it's less expensive and it's a much more sustainable as well as non-toxic products so folks this is why we answer why's love it if you have any questions about how we might be able to make your home more energy-efficient comfortable please cause we'd love to help you out one last temperature check the cellulose is now creeped up to 75 degrees with the heat lamp and the fiberglass is at a hundred and four degrees well 77 now and a hundred and six so you can clearly see that cellulose insulation is the clear winner thanks for your time have a great day

Channel: Insulwise Energy & Comfort Solutions

Views: 11,065

Rating: 4.8769231 out of 5

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Id: xYykGpMO0uM

Length: 5min 12sec (312 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 18 2020