Attic Insulation Replacement Vacuum Cleanout

06.21.2006 - I visited my friend Matt in Massachusetts, and he brought me to one of his attic cleanout jobs. This attic was filled with bat droppings, or guano, due to an infestation of Big Brown Bats. It's important to remove the droppings, because they not only smell bad, but can grow mold over time, mold that can cause lung diseases for the inhabitants of the house. The insulation in the attic was also sub-par, so Matt decided to remove all of the droppings and insulation, clean the attic, and add new insulation. I helped out on the day that we removed the droppings and insulation. In the first photo, to the upper-left, we see Matt using a 4" vacuum hose to vacuum out all of the droppings and insulation. The hose runs through the house and outside to a very powerful industrial strength vacuum unit. The only glitch was the occasional clogging of the hose with BAT insulation paper. In the middle photo we see Matt and his helpers rolling up the bulk of the insulation, which was easier to remove by hand than with the vacuum hose, which kept clogging. In the photo to the upper-right, we see many bags filled with soiled insulation. After all of the insulation was removed and the attic was vacummed clean, the next step is to decontaminate the attic. After that comes the insulation replacement. Matt uses a similar method and machine, but this time it's a long hose that blows insulation into the attic. The blown-in loose fill insulation does a better job of overall coverage than the rolled-out BAT insulation. I wasn't around for the insulation replacement project, but I heard that it went well.