[Greenbuilding] Cellulose blowing tools/techniques

[Jefro]

I have been following this thread with grave interest, as I am in the 
same position---about 3 or 4 weeks away from installing cellulose into 
my 2x10 wall cavities.

As I see it, I have three options if I want to do the job myself---and 
given the financial realities of house building, I will be doing it 
myself.  I'll be using Cocoon cellulose, which is manufactured about 150 
miles from home, and installing with a rented blower.  This will be a 
dry install.  Options are:

- sheetrock first, drill holes and install as a retrofit per manuf. 
instructions
- install poly netting and blow through it, and hope for the best
- sheetrock the lower half of the wall, fill with cellulose, then do the 
same with the upper half

I can see advantages and disadvantages to each method.  Will probably do 
a test run using each method on a couple of different wall sections 
first, to see which goes fastest and which seems to fit most densely and 
thoroughly.  I'll also do a "settle test" by drilling holes at the 
ceiling in a couple of months and topping off where necessary.

For the third method, I wonder if it would be advantageous to forego the 
blower, just sheetrock up 4 feet and dump the stuff into the well, and 
then compress or tamp down by hand before adding the top layer.  Any 
thoughts?

BTW, I estimated about 105 "bags" of insulation per the manufacturer's 
recommended coverage.  (They list for horizontal blowing, mine is inside 
vertical walls so I added 10%.)  The hardware store rents the blower for 
free if you buy enough insulation.  That means that ALL of the wall 
insulation to fill 2x10 walls in a 1600sf two-story house for approx. 
R29 walls, will cost about $1100.  That beats fiberglass by a long, long 
margin, though of course doesn't count the roof.