Donald Stepp in Fort Collins, Colorado wanted to insulate the walls of his 100+ year old home. He also owns multiple rental properties. Recently, he purchased a standard CM1500 and wanted an additional blower added to it to provide extra air velocity to insulate the walls of all these buildings.
We met Don, on site, and helped him insulate one side of his house. Under the lap-board siding, the wall had a very thick cedar lap. Often, when insulating these old homes, you will find multiple layers of exterior lumber. After making a generous hole, we snaked a 1-1/2″ dense pack hose into the cavity. The interior walls are lath and plaster, making it even more of a challenge to snake the tubing into the wall.
It is very important to dense pack walls in this manner. It provides a consistent, solidly packed wall that achieves ultimate R-values and will never settle. The CM1500 has enough air velocity to dense pack, however, in the case of the many projects Don was facing, we encouraged him to add an additional 9amp blower since he would have some situations where he had a second story.
If you are considering dense packing with a CM1500, make sure to get a second blower. It really helps keep the pressure constant and allows for greater reaches on multiple level buildings.
