Blown -in Home Insulation

A question for the contractors here…
I have an 85 year old house that needs the sidewalls insulated and I decided not to reside….figured blown-in would be the way to go..
I have had a couple of quotes and so here is the question..Is foam worth the extra $ or will cellulose or fiberglass work just as well??
The foam is $700.00 more but sound like a better product for noise-suppression ect.
Any opinions would be greatly appreciated
Thanks guys…

I know blown in mineral wool is a better choice then cellulose, it settles very little to none. I don’t know much about foam but I do know it seals the drafts out better and has a better R-value. A $700 difference doesn’t sound like a whole bunch when it comes to insulating a whole house. Just a question but are they going to remove a piece of siding where their going to drill the holes instead of putting in those plastic plugs after they’ve drilled. If it isn’t in the bid to do it maybe you can tell them they have the job if they do it then rehang it, it looks a little better. Also ask them if they know or not if theres fireblocking between the studs. Alot of those older houses were balloon framed and had fireblocking between the basement and top of the second floor. The reason I’m asking is because if the blocking is there the insulation won’t fall all the way to floor level like it should. In other words there will be voids in the walls where there won’t be any insulation. Theres two ways to find this out. One is they have to drop a probe to see if there is fireblocking, the other is drill a smaller hole down at the bottom to see if the insulation has fallen down to floor level. Ask them what their going to do to find out if the blocking is there. (Very important) make sure they know if its in the walls or not and what they plan to do if it is. Also I did a drywall repair job one time and had to take the lath and plaster off the wall and their house had blown in cellulose. They didn’t insulate under the windows. They have to drill under each window in a couple spots to fill the framing properly. There’s a few older balloon framed houses that have voids in them because of the fireblocking where the contractors didn’t take the time to find out if the blocking was there or not. All references do in this job is tell you if they showed up or not and if they completed it, it doesn’t tell you if they insulated properly. Message me if you need advice.

as far as i know with the spray foam you have to shoot the entire wall cavity. meaning one side has to have exposed studs. ie no sheet rock or sheathing.
it is an expansion product and would likely blow out one side if it is sprawed into a sealed cavity.
But maybe they have some super low expansion stuff now???

also, blow in is super easy to do, cut a hole in the rock, get HD or lows machine and use the OC pink panther brand insul. patch hole and re-paint. Depending on how much you enjoy this type of work.

If done correctly foam is the best choice. $700 difference on the whole house sounds off, make sure you get everything in writing.

For $700 it is money well spent. They now have a “watered down” type of foam that they can spray in the wall cavity very similar to the blow in insulations. The foam seals EVERY small gap and air intake. It expands around electrical boxes and covers all the small openings. IMHO the rest of the insulation products are going to be phased out in the future since this does such a good job.

I recently had my cabin sprayed and it is a thing of beauty. You “R” value is great, and their are no air gaps. $700 is a small price to pay, and I would do it in a heartbeat.

Check out tax rebates on any insulation. There are some good incentives right now to upgrade energy efficiency.

By the way, I am a contractor.

Thanks big time for the responses guys!
Is this a great site or what!!
I’m gonna have to do a little more research and ask some more questions…..
Thanks again!!

Not the same app but my input on foam. I bought a home foam unit on the internet a couple weeks back. It was spendy but i must say I was impressed with the product. My application sucked because I didnt have enough working space but the foam was nice. Two tanks that mixed. Went on easy and dried almost instantly. I would do it again myself if I had enough space for easy application. The end result was a closed cell, gap filling, R-value covering that appears to even add structural integrity.