Hi,
We are re-roofing and thought it would be nice to clean up 60 years of dust, possum poo and re-insulate the space. I was quoted by one person $1600 just to remove the old insulation (batts) and vacuum the space, while another is fully booked for two months. Should we just hire an industrial vacuum ($250) and do it ourselves over the weekend? Has anyone done that? Any recommendations? We are in Sydney.
Thanks!
You can get corona from batts
OP will need a Corona or two, to wash the dust out of the throat.
$1600 seems reasonable compared to the health risk and unpleasantness of DIY.
Years ago we got our roof cavity vacuumed. Google Gideon from ceiling suckers. He was great and sucked up everything from dead rats, bats and crap.
Have a crawl through your roof and then imagine ripping out the batts and dragging a heavy vacuum through it.
Or just pay someone to do it. However if you do that make sure you either personally check their work once completed or get photos.
Pay someone.
When renovating I did ours bit by bit with a dust broom and household vacuum. It wasn’t fun, especially carting the waste back out through the manhole and down stairs. At least I can walk around our more than half our ceiling space standing up though, wouldn’t want to do it where I had to crawl the whole lot.
I used InSulVac Tel: 1300 763 459
Roof Space Access - LIFT/REPLACE ROOF TILES - N/C dropped ceiling
in the house 0 $61.20 $0.00
Debris Removal - charged per 6kg bag - x1 BAG ONLY N/C 0 $30.00 $0.00
Vacuum Loose Fill - MINIMUM CHARGE 1 $1,060.80 $1,060.80
Waste Disposal - EPA APPROVED FACILITY 90 $3.18 $286.20
Waste Disposal - EPA APPROVED FACILITY - take away 10m2 loose fill
free of charge 0 $3.18 $0.00
SUBTOTAL: $1,347.00
GST: $134.70
TOTAL: $1,481.70
PAID: $1,481.70
They even collated loose fibro into bags free of charge up there.
Prices may have increased in last 2 years
Invoice Date 06/2019
Thanks! They are the one fully booked for 2 months!
I’m all for saving money, but this is a professional job. I can’t stand even going up into my roof crawl space, let alone vacuuming and cleaning up there
Definitely outsource this icky job.
In-laws had it done years ago prior to installing batts and told us that the tradies looked like they were covered in soot when they finished up.
don't forget to factor into your DIY job the risk of breakages, roof tiles or putting your foot through the ceiling,
I've done it twice.
The first time I used my parents old vacuum cleaner and was emptying it every 15 mins.
2nd was with an Ozito wet & dry shop vac. Heaps better
Both houses had bats, which I moved. I didn't get itchy but I did have gloves, overalls, face mask, eye protection, etc
It's filthy job but satisfying as you clean out each section.
A Ryobi or Ozito shop vac is about $100.
I am considering exactly this job.
The property has the old blown in insulation which is absolutely disgusting, then there is the layer of dust, leaves, dead insects and what else I have not seen.
I have thought about the options.
1) Use old vacuum. This is a good idea, cheap, but the collection bin of the bagless vacuum is small, I doubt it would even contain one rectangle of 'stuff'.
2) Use a garden blower / vaccum. I already have one, the collection bag is bigger, the unit also has a long snout but it is rigged so I doubt I can be in the roof cavity, I wiuld need to stand from above, take out a few tiles, then use the vac to remove the dirt. Maybe have a few bin bags up there to empty out the vac bag.
The property has the old blown in insulation….Use a garden blower / vaccum
Don't try to use the garden vacuum, the fibres will choke the impeller, as it's not designed for this type of material. When my Ozito picked up some string mixed in with leaves, it caused a motor failure.
Yep, did it. If I had the money, and I wouldn’t miss it, I’d pay someone.
I removed 130 sq/m approximately, of old batts into rubbish bags, and vacuumed the area with a shop-vac. I went top down removing tiles as I went along, replacing tiles, and nailed in tiles with spring side lap clips.
I did it in summer so avoided much rain, but it was very hard work, dangerous work (could have fallen off roof), I needed to buy around 30 tiles to replace ones that broke or ones that were already broken. Also very easy to disrupt the ridge capping on the tiles so need to be careful not to disturb them.
If, and hopefully I’ll have another house someday, when that times comes if I need work like that done I’ll use a contractor, and then save money on things like landscaping or gardening.
After having done it, I’d avoid doing it again, sort of thing.
Hope that helps you.
We have been doing this over the weekend, pulled up all the batts and rolled them up into bags. It's absolutely exhausting.
Best you cover up head to toe. A stick with a screw on the end to hook the batts and move them around in the hard to reach spots is a fantastic tool.
Next steps will be to vacuum with a shop vac and then lay down the new batts we purchased.
I got a quote for $4k to remove the old batts and put in the new, about 100sqm. To have it done quickly and have someone else be the one doing it, I guess it's not the worst thing. But the wife and I would rather do the work ourselves over a week or so than part with the $$
Good tips! How much did the new batts cost you to buy?
I poked my head in the ceiling at my place a couple of weeks ago, and while it does need a vaccuum evidently the batts have also been laid stupidly. Some areas have a quadruple stack, other areas are bare. Fixing it all is definitely on my to-do list
I got these from Bunnings; Bradford Black R4.1
https://www.bunnings.com.au/bradford-r4-1-1160-x-580-x-205mm…
Supposedly hypoallergenic. Wifey has dust allergies so whatever helps I guess. Our batts were different colours, textures and sizes… An entire bedroom had nothing on top.
An absolute must I would advise anyone else doing this would be to have some sort of foam to place between the joists/beams and your ass, save yourself some bruises.
After batts, PPE, tools and bags etc.. this will run us less than $1k , though we have the advantage of a skip we can use since we have some building work going on.
It's a really crappy job, be prepared to get itchy from the batts.