+Richard Castillo Thanks for watching. I hope it works well for you. I did a bunch of research on RU-vid before my project and realized that the companies that do this work just use a bigger, faster version, so this was a perfect DIY set up.
Awesome video man! This was super helpful. I was dreading paying someone and especially doing it myself with no help. This is a great solution and you get a dust collector at the end! Thanks for taking the time to do this.
Dude I bought the dust collector and it worked like a charm! It was slow going but it got the job done. Saved me a ton of money! Again I really appreciate it.@@Erich1870
Have to remove old attic insulation (720 sq ft)of old dusty smelly cellulose, got a bid from insulating company... $800.00 to remove the old and $600.00 for new install.. with this idea of yours(by the way is great) it will cost me around $200.00 for the machine and hose.. and of course labor of love.. and if your a do it self-er you know that it will be done right...take the time to caulk and seal all the air infiltration's...going to have a company blow in new insulation.. so savings of around $600.00..well worth it to me...Thanks Erich for posting this idea...I owe you a beer... cheers
Love it! I wanted to use a fan motor that is designed the same way as yours but was made for inflating a bounce house. The bounce house got destroyed but I kept the blower. I intend on using it for shop dust collection but I need to remove a lot of cellulose first. I was unsure about using it for cellulose though. You have answered my question. Thank you!
I was wondering the same thing. It's flame retardant, it's a natural insect & rodent repellent. It's the absolute best choice for insulation. It's can't be ruined by water at all. It retains its R-value when it gets wet, and dries. Infact it get added to water & "wet sprayed" into walls on new construction. You can always blow more cellulose on top of the old for added benefit. You did yourself a disservice here...
@@knowledgeispower6192 I'm sure it has benefits outside my zone but it wasn't the right choice in my climate. It was installed during a time when a building boom brought out of state contractors building inferior homes and they skipped town when the problems started showing.
Awesome video man, i'm remodeling my house and i'm getting blown in stuff raining on me every time i pull drywall down. I'm going to Harbor Freight and the Depot tomorrow! Can't wait :) Just a bit of advice, you should put your material/equipment bought or used in your description so people can see it at a glance, thanks for the video!
Hello, is this able to vacuum small pieces of roof shingles also? I am asking because I just had my roofing replaced and there are tons of small chunks of shingles that dropped into my attic during demolition. TIA. Genius idea.
if you contact a heating and air company (residential) they throw furnaces out everyday. aquire a decent size one, take the blower wheel out, wire it to plug into the wall and bam 3000 cfm. just use a 8" flex duct. May go quicker.
mark broad Interesting idea! We have very few forced air heating systems in town so it would be hard to get my hands on one up here, but it's a great suggestion to others to try!
Erich, Nice demo. Seems like this would work to transfer insulation from over garage to another attic area and re-use the insulation. Does the material get too chopped up and dense to use as insulation after going through the fan/blower system?
The vacuum can do it, but the real trick will be where you put the insulation. Will you be putting it directly into a dumpster? You’d need to run some volume calcs, as that big of a house might need multiple dumpsters.
@@Erich1870 I plan on picking up most of it with a dust pan and 55 gal trash bags. Gotta start somewhere. Thanks for the fast response I appreciate it I subbed
Blown in insulation is fine, I just found the cellulose kind was collecting moisture and settling into a rock hard mass that wasn’t providing the proper R value any more. I removed it and replaced it with fiberglass blown in. Others have commented that cellulose works great in their regions. I suspect its failure for me is due to the climate in SE Alaska.
I've used the insulation blowing machine and the only difference is that machine has puddles to break up the bales. If you had a way to do that, this dust collector would blow it, no problem.
@@Erich1870 awesome many thanks for your reply. How long do you think the maximum length of the blower hose could be before the fibre would not exit the hose?. Also do you think the impeller needs to be steel or alloy? If it was a plastic impeller it would eventually crack I suppose. I am in Australia! so a lot harder to buy these items.
They make a large gas powered unit which is designed for sucking the insulation out. If you want to drop $3500-$5,000 on one. But companies also rent them out. I've rented one a few time for projects. These are insulation specific companies. Maybe I should buy one. I could use the tax deduction anyway.
Correct, but no one rented one in my area. I actually called a home energy contractor to see if they had one and they made their workers use dust pans and garbage bags. I was like 😳
@@Erich1870same for my area. The company was a state or 2 over, 5-6 hours. They bundle the vac and hoses up on a skid or to and send it truck freight to you. Then you ship it back when you are done. It’s available to insulation contractors anyway. Not positive on DIY’ers or not. I think I had $500-600 in rent and freight before i was done, but worth it to me.
Up here it collects moisture and settles into a brick with greatly reduced insulation value. The blown in fiberglass stays loose and fluffy and resists moisture in the air.
@Mr Sunshines . Before you call someone a retard, maybe you should explain how you ventilate ADDICTS? Do you take them to a hospital or do you do it on location? And did the capital letters and periods get ventilated out? I do agree with you on the condensation issue, though.
hey thanks for this nice video. Can you please tell the brand name of this machine.. i need exactly this machine.. i am making cellulose insulation in Turkey now and its hard to collect them from floor..hope you can see my comment..
I have a similar project to do right now with some slightly water hardened and frozen insulation. I noticed in your video you had a small hand rake to loosen the insulation; do you know if frozen insulation behaves the same as in your project (which looked to be filmed in warm conditions)?Also, I'm assuming you want to minimize the length of intake piping to your fan unit to maximize the suction. How long and what diameter piping did you use on the intake? Did the length of outlet piping impact the unit's performance?Could you estimate (once you had the procedure down) the cubic volume of insulation you could remove with this set-up per unit time?Lastly, do you have any suggestions as to whether you feel a larger/smaller/different suction fan would do a better or more efficient job?
+mike sanderman Hi Mike, if your insulation is frozen too hard, it might be a chore to break it up so it fits in the pipe, but you won't know until you give it a try. Mine wasn't frozen, but it was really dense from getting wet several times. I did find that a small rake or garden spade worked well to break it up. I bought a 100' roll of Corex Drain Pipe (Solid) from Home Depot. I cut it in half and used 50' as the suction side. I had a shorter section blowing into the trailer. Your length will depend on where you can mount your blower. I agree that the suction side should be as short as you can make it to keep it efficient. I didn't play around with different lengths. I had to get it done as quickly as I could and I didn't get a much video as I wanted because I was in a time crunch. I filled my garden trailer in about 3 hours. That included stopping 6 times to climb down and compress it to save space. It made a brick of insulation that was 5'x7'x4' thick, so I guess you could say I moved ~46 cf per hour. If you could vacuum and not stop, you should move twice that. A larger fan with a larger hose would definitely move more material. I have a 1hp motor. If you got a larger one, you will move more material guaranteed. I could feel the motor slow down when I gave it a full load. I wasn't stalling or anything, but more horsepower will give you more through-put. Thanks for watching and keep the questions coming. I hope your project goes well. It's a very inexpensive way to remove your own insulation.
I have to do the same in my attic. I'm getting the harbor freight dust collector 189 with coupon. I don't have a traler, but I'll figure something out. How did you get rid of all that insulation?
I took it to my local landfill in the trailer and dumped it out the back. You should call your waste management company for a dumpster if you're removing a lot and can't go to the dump yourself.
Thanks! It definitely would work, as long as the insulation is loose and not compacted. You'd want to wear good respiration protection because it will make dust.
@@matthewharaminac6348 ended up putting in that newer recycled insulation, so just rented the blower from home depot. Still have my fiberglass stored away for the future.
I guess I am a little late in watching this... however, I have question: did you run into static electricity problems and if so, how did you address them? Thank you for this video. I have a similar dust collector from Grizzly, only it has 2HP, maybe I am done faster... :-D
@@Erich1870 blown in fiberglass that is matted down due to walking on it. Ive put it in garbage bags in the past to move around. Does your machine work to blow it back in?
@@functionalvanconversion4284 You might need a small rake to break up the matted sections. I've never tried blowing anything with this. I've used the blower system from Home Depot and it seems similar.
I took it to the dump. I was in a rush to get it dumped before they closed so I didn't get any video but it came out as a solid brick. it looked pretty cool!
It worked! Bigger would be better but the real place I would make a change was at the sucking end. I needed to put a solid piece of pipe to break up the hard cellulose. Once the pieces were small enough, the blower sucked them away just fine.
I have a 22hp services partner turbo vacuum and in 5hrs I removed 2500 square feet of cellulose, rockwool or fiberglass insulation, this guys are cheeper
@Mr Sunshines sorry mr sunshines but that's not the way home insulation works. It relies on small, trapped pockets of air to create a thermal break. If you compress it, you loose a majority of its R value. If it collects water it damages the drywall.
Agreed. You also made that little 1 hp motor work way harder than it needs to. Cutting off the unnecessary pipe would be at least twice as fast. Glad to know this works though. Pretty cool.
It would but it would fill up right away. Plus I think most shop vacs use plastic impellers and it would not last as long to have debris flowing through the blades. This vac system has a metal impeller and is designed to handle stuff like chunks of wood, screws, staples, and other stuff you'll find in your attic.
That sucks! The suction is horrible you might of saved money but productivity is awful it goes to show doing things right is best. This is painful to watch its awful
Oh i know I just find it funny it worked so poorly I can see by the video and I know cause I do this kind of work. All you did was make a machine that looks like an insulation removal vacuum but in reality it’s no better than a shop vac
