Blown-In Insulation

Blown-in is a method, not a menu — and the method decides whether the R-value printed on the bag ever reaches your attic floor. Loose fill is fed through a hopper, fluffed with air, and hosed across the deck through a long fill tube, laying down an even blanket that drapes over joists, wiring runs, and the irregular framing a rigid batt can never sit flush against. That conformability is the entire reason loose fill exists: no seams, no friction-fit gaps, no cut-to-fit waste. We install it the way the coverage chart demands — to the bag count AND the settled depth, not whichever one runs out first.

Material choice moves the numbers, and we choose by the attic rather than by what's on the truck. Cellulose delivers roughly R-3.7 per inch, packs denser, and resists air movement through the blanket better — but it's heavier and settles more, so we over-blow it to cover the drop. Loose-fill fiberglass runs about R-2.5 per inch, weighs less, settles barely at all, and won't wick water if the attic ever leaks — but at low density it lets more air drift through, so we blow it to the higher install depth its chart specifies. Reaching R-38 to R-49 means a real, different installed depth for each: a cellulose job and a fiberglass job to the same R-value are not the same height of fill, and a crew that ignores that under-delivers one of them.

The craft is in the density and depth verification. We dial the machine to the target install density — under-fluffed cellulose blows light and settles into a thin, cold blanket; over-packed fiberglass wastes material and can lose loft. We over-blow above the final R-target so that after loose fill settles in its first weeks the SETTLED depth still meets spec, and we staple depth-marker rulers every few feet across the deck so the installed inches are a measurement you can read for yourself, not a promise. We dam and baffle the eaves so the blower doesn't drift fill into the soffit vents and so wind-washing can't thin the perimeter blanket. Unlike insulation-services — the umbrella that decides whether blowing, batt, or spray is even the right answer and air-seals the envelope first — this page is the loose-fill blow itself, the one installation method.

One honest limit frames this method: loose fill is a conductive barrier, not an air barrier. Blown over an unsealed attic, it just filters the air still leaking through every top-plate gap and penetration, which is why we flag air-sealing as a prerequisite instead of pretending the blanket cures leakage. We blow over existing fill when it's dry and intact — a top-off to depth — and re-fluff or re-level settled, matted, or foot-traffic-crushed fill that's lost its rated loft. The premium lives in the gauge readings, the over-blow math, and the documented settled depth — getting the method exactly right, every square foot.

Because we measure rather than guess, the machine-density settings and over-blow allowance are tuned to the climate zone and the chosen material's coverage chart on every job — cellulose in a freeze-thaw attic and fiberglass in a hot-climate one are each installed to their own correct settled depth. You're not trusting a crew to eyeball the hopper; you're getting the brand standard on the one thing this service is: loose fill, blown to a proven depth.

For a machine-blown, density-correct, depth-verified loose-fill install, call (469) 992-4912 anywhere Space Fireplace Services serves.