CELLULOSE INSULATION REMOVAL
Why do you need cellulose Removal? Cellulose dominated in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Today, it dominates our insulation removal work. The cellulose fibre is made from a plant based material, typically being recycled paper. The old newspaper is shredded, emulsified and chemicals are added for the installation process and to make it flame retardant. Chemicals such as boric acid and borax are used as fire retardants. Being old newspaper, most printing was done with lead based inks. Couple this with formaldehyde found in cellulose, and your home is toxic.
The borax and boric acid found in cellulose insulation are commonly found household materials, but are not good for your health. Found in cleaning products, when they are loose and airborne as in the blown in cellulose they create respiratory issues for young children and the elderly. The boric acid and borax was designed to make the product fire resistant, and prevent water absorption.
When originally installed, the cellulose looked exactly that; cosy. It was fluffy, pumped up nice and high and looked like you just wanted to use it as a bed. What happens over time however, is the air that was sitting between the fibres separates and compresses. This leaves the old insulation flattened to under half of it’s original thickness. When those air pockets reduce and disappear, the old cellulose loses it’s R value and effectiveness.
How it impacts your home
As the old cellulose insulation remains in your roof space, the insulation get’s blown around and over time, the chemicals in the newspaper start to seperate. Our cellulose removal team vacuum this out of roofs every day, and we see that the when you lift the lose fill insulation, you are left with the dust. This dust is the chemical that has leached out of the insulation and become airborne. As it is such a fine dust, it penetrates your home through air conditioning ducts, vents, exposed brickwork, cornices; everywhere in your home. This is one of the most common improvements we see after cellulose insulation removal; the dust in the house reduces.
How We Remove Cellulose Insulation
Using a supercharged vacuum system, we extract all the cellulose insulation from your roof space. The old insulation is bagged up and then disposed at a local waste management facility. All the work is completed via the roof. This means there is little interruption to your home. We recommend after the insulation removal that you replace with ceiling insulation. We recommend the Bradford Gold range.