Patent Application
20060162649
The present invention involves a nozzle assembly for spraying substantially dry or fully dry fibrous insulation.
It is conventional to pump or blow loose fill fibrous insulation into attics, walls, etc. of houses and other buildings. It is also known to add a binder, de-dusting oil, anti-static agent and/or fungicide to small pieces of fiberglass, mineral wool or other fibrous insulation in or near a blowing nozzle to prevent settling, sparking and mold or to reduce dust in the area of the installation during installation. Such technology can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,710,4804, 4,804,695, but as stated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,952,418, these systems suffer from problems of blockage of adhesive nozzles and/or a blowing hose. Further, these systems require a moisture content in the preinstalled product that is so high that the insulation requires a long drying time, two or more days, of the wall cavity installations before wall board can be installed if potential mold problems, such as in the paper facing of the wall board are to be avoided.
Cellulose loose fill insulation is also sprayed into wall cavities, but to make the insulation stay in the cavity and not fall out, it is necessary to penetrate it with water such that as much as 2-3 pounds or more of water exists in the insulation as installed in a standard eight foot high wall cavity formed by the standard construction of 8 foot, 2″×4″ inch studs on 16 inch centers. Such an installation takes days to dry sufficiently to install wallboard. It is known to add a powder adhesive to the cellulose insulation prior to injecting water into the blow to reduce the amount of water needed to get the cellulose to stick to the wall of the cavity as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,773,960, but the just installed insulation still contains much more than 15 percent water.
It is also known to spray clumps of fiber glass insulation coated with water and a non-foaming binder into wall cavities followed by rolling at least about an inch of excess insulation thickness down to the thickness of the wall studs followed by spraying additional clumps of insulation into any thin spots or unfilled cavities and apparently again rolling excess thickness down to the thickness of the studs. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,641,368, the installed insulation is reported to have a moisture content of less than about 35 wt. percent and moisture contents of less than 10 percent are disclosed for some examples, but it is unclear how long after installation the samples were removed for testing. When using lower moisture content, the clumps do not stick well to certain conventional linings of wall cavities and the rolled insulation tends to spring back in some areas. Also, the additional step of spraying a second time slows the building installation process. Nozzles for spraying water on or an aqueous binder onto clumps of insulation while the latter are inside the nozzle are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,923,121 and 5,921,055, but these nozzles from liquid and binder striking the inside walls of the nozzle causing fiber and particles to build up on the inside of the nozzle.
A nozzle for coating clumps of insulation after they exit the nozzle is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,187,983, but this nozzle is extremely complex requiring many costly machined parts, compressed air and two sets of jet atomizers, and the angle of the jets cannot be changed.
With concerns of mold problems in walls of various kinds of structures reaching serious levels, and installed lowest installed costs being important to commercial success, a loose fill insulation, particularly an inorganic fiber insulation, that contains a low moisture content or substantially no moisture just after installation and that will dry more rapidly to a level suitable for installing wall board is greatly needed to reduce costs of construction and to reduce the potential for mold problems. The present invention addresses these needs of a more effective nozzle and a method of using the nozzle to produce a superior and less costly just-installed insulation product.
The invention includes a delivery system or nozzle assembly for receiving a stream of air entrained, fully dry or substantially dry fibrous clumps, nodules, and pils and mixtures thereof, the pils making up only a small weight percent of the fibrous material, of an inorganic fibrous material from a blow hose coming from a conventional insulation blowing machine, passing the stream through a shredder to convert the much of the clumps, nodules or mixtures thereof to pils and then substantially increasing the velocity of the air entrained pils prior to spraying the pils into a cavity in a structure. The spray on insulation entering the delivery system or nozzle assembly typically contains no significant moisture (water) except for what may have been absorbed from the environment and the moisture content in the just-installed insulation product is typically less than about 5 weight percent, based on the dry weight of the installed product. When the term “just-installed” is used herein, it is meant a sprayed-in insulation product no more than 10 minutes after installation. The air suspended stream of fibrous insulation exiting the shredder section of the delivery system or nozzle assembly of the invention contains at least 50 wt. percent pils and this increased pils content is important to the sticking power of the pieces of fibrous insulation as it is consolidated in a building cavity. By fully dry is meant containing only a small amount of moisture that is absorbed by the insulation from a humid environment and is normally below 2 wt. percent. By substantially dry is meant that the moisture content of he insulation is below about 5 wt. percent.
The delivery system or nozzle assembly can also optionally comprise a means for permitting a fixed or adjustable flow rate of air outside the nozzle to enter into the moving stream of air entrained pils coming from the shredder section. The nozzle also comprises an accelerator section for increasing the velocity of the air entrained material including the pils. Finally, the nozzle can optionally have one or more devices for spraying water or an aqueous adhesive onto the moving stream of air entrained nodules and/or clumps of fibrous insulation. The nozzle can be attached, at its entrance end, to a hose connected to the blowing machine, or to a short section of more flexible working hose. The cross section of the nozzle is normally round, but can be elliptical, square, rectangular or other polygonal shape
Usually the inorganic fibers are fiberglass, but other fibers including slag wool, mineral wool, rock wool, cellulosic fibers, ceramic fibers and carbon fibers are included. Ideally, the average diameter of the fibers is about 2 microns or less. The clumps or nodules are mostly smaller than one-half inch in diameter, but larger sizes can be used. Nodules are defined as very small diameter of fibrous insulation of 0.25 inch diameter and smaller. Clumps are defined as having diameters greater than the diameter of nodules and up to the conventional size of clumps in the blowing insulation industry that are typically less than about 0.5 inch in diameter. The clumps and/or nodules are produced by running mineral fiber insulation such as virgin glass fiber insulation or fiber glass insulation containing a cured binder through a hammer mill, slicer-dicer or other device for reducing material to small clumps and/or nodules as is common in the industry. The shredder section of the nozzle assembly reduces the sizes of the clumps and nodules to pils (piliform) size, i.e. to pieces whose bodies are about 0.2 inch and smaller with a majority of pils having a diameter of less than about 0.15 inch and, typically a majority of the pils having a diameter of less than about 0.13 inch or smaller. As used herein, the diameter of the pils is meant the diameter of the “body” of the pils, not the diameter to the ends of projecting fibers extending from the “body” of the pils. The projecting fibers on the pils entangle with pils of the just-installed insulation upon impact due to the velocity of the stream of pils to provide surprisingly good just-installed integrity or strength.
The clumps or nodules of inorganic fibrous insulation can also contain conventional amounts of one or more biocides, anti-static agents, de-dusting oils, hydrophobic agents such as a silicone, fire retardants, phase change material, particulate aerogel, coloring agents and IR blocking agents. The other additives, when present, are also preferably included with the clumps or nodules.
When the word “about” is used herein it is meant that the amount or condition it modifies can vary somewhat beyond that claimed so long as the advantages of the invention are realized without any unexpected differences. Practically, there is rarely the time or resources available to very precisely determine the limits of all the parameters of ones invention because to do would require an effort far greater than can be justified at the time the invention is being developed to a commercial reality. The skilled artisan understands this and expects that the disclosed results of the invention might extend, at least somewhat, beyond one or more of the limits disclosed. Later, having the benefit of the inventors disclosure and understanding the inventive concept and embodiments disclosed including the best mode known to the inventor, the inventor and others can, without inventive effort, explore beyond the limits disclosed to determine if the invention is realized beyond those limits and, when embodiments are found to be without any unexpected characteristics, those embodiments are within the meaning of the term about as used herein. It is not difficult for the artisan or others to determine whether such an embodiment is either as expected or, because of either a break in the continuity of results or one or more features that are significantly better than reported by the inventor, is surprising and thus an unobvious teaching leading to a further advance in the art.
Blowing clumps of fibrous insulation using a blowing machine, blow hose and spraying an aqueous binder mixture onto the clumps in a hose or nozzle while in air suspension and thereafter directing the air suspension into a wall cavity to form in-wall thermal insulation between vertical studs is known, but problems have been encountered in getting the insulation to stay put in the wall cavities if the moisture content of the air entrained insulation is at a low level, particularly with just installed moisture contents below about 10 wt. percent and particularly below about 5 wt. percent.
It is known how to make loose-fill clumps, 0.5 inch diameter, of inorganic, mineral fibers for forming blown-in insulation by passing virgin fiber or scrap resin bonded fiber product through a perforated plate in a hammer mill. The inorganic and/or mineral fibers used in the present invention can be glass, mineral wool, slag wool, or a ceramic fiber and preferably is fiberglass. The loose fill clumps and/or nodules of fibrous insulation for use in the present invention is made by running virgin fiber or fiber product scrap through a conventional hammer mill, a slicer-dicer or an equivalent material processing machine. A slicer-dicer cuts or shears blankets of fibrous insulation into small cube like or other three dimensional pieces while hammer mills the like machines tear and shear virgin fiber glass or fiber glass blanket into pieces, letting only pieces below a pre-selected size out of the mill by using an exit screen containing the desired hole sizes. Virgin fiber is a fiber web or blanket made specifically for spray insulation and typically contains no resin binder.
Any type of fibrous insulation product can be processed in a hammermill, e.g. fibrous blanket in which fibers, including glass fibers, are bonded together with a cured resin, usually a thermoset resin, or a blanket of virgin fiberglass containing only de-dusting oil, silicone, anti-stat, etc. Also, the binder used to bond the glass fibers together in the blanket can also contain one or more of functional ingredients such as IR barrier agents, anti-static agents, anti-fungal agents, biocides, de-dusting agents, pigments, colorants, etc., or one or more of these functional ingredients can be applied to the fibers either before or during processing in the hammer mill or other reducing device. The size of openings in an exit screen in the hammer mill are varied to produce the desired size of clumps and/or nodules. The typical size of the openings in the exit screen range from about one inch to about three inches and a more typical size hole is about 1.25 inches.
The clumps and/or nodules of mineral fiber such as fiberglass can also derive from what is called “virgin blowing wool.” This is achieved by making insulation fiber in a conventional manner except that no resin or binder is applied to the fibers. Instead, only a conventional amount of de-dusting oil and/or an anti-stat like silicone is applied to the fibers and the resultant fibrous blanket is then run through the hammer mill. Other agents can also be applied to the fibers such as a fungicide, a biocide, filler particles and/or IR reflecting particles, either immediately after fiberizing or in the hammer mill. The inorganic and/or mineral fibers used in the present invention can be glass, mineral wool, slag wool, or a ceramic fiber and typically is fiberglass.
The nodules treated by the invention are defined as very small diameter ball-like, fibrous insulation of 0.25 inch and smaller diameter and are accompanied by clumps of about minus 0.5 inch, or larger, in diameter. The average fiber diameter of the mineral fibers can be 6 microns or smaller, but typically is less than about 3 microns or smaller, more typically is about 2 microns or smaller and most typically is 1.5 microns or smaller. To produce the dry feed for the nozzles of the invention, the above described clumps and nodules are fed into a conventional insulation blowing machine that entrains the clumps and nodules in a rapidly moving air stream that exits the blowing machine via a flexible blowing hose. A typical blowing machine is a Unisul Volu-Matic® machine made by Unisul Company of Winter Haven, Fla.
A typical nozzle assembly or delivery system used in the method of the invention is shown in
The shredder section 8 reduces the sizes of the clumps and nodules to pils (piliform) size, i.e. to less than pieces that are about 0.2 inch and smaller with a majority of pils having a diameter of less than about 0.15 inch and, typically a majority of the pils having a diameter of less than about 0.13 inch or smaller. A typical pils made by the shredder section 8 of the nozzle of the invention is shown in
One suitable adjusting mechanism 14 is shown in
By “constant diameter,” as used herein, means the internal diameter is substantially constant, most typically is constant within normal tolerances, but can vary by at least ± about 0.125 inch. The ratio of the internal diameter of the constant diameter portion 17 of the accelerator section 12 to the internal diameter of the shredder portion 10 of the shredder section 8 is typically in the range of about 0.25 to about 0.75. The length of the tapered portion 13 is typically within the range of about 1.5 to about 3 times the diameter of the constant diameter portion 17. The increased velocity of the stream 22 enhances a build rate of just-installed insulation 24 in a building cavity such as wall cavity 25. The increased velocity causes the pils of insulation to adhere together better upon impact, reducing rebound and providing sufficient integrity in the just-installed insulation 24 to remain in the cavity without collapsing or at least partially falling out.
The velocity is further enhanced in the nozzle 2 by permitting outside air to be inspirated into the air entrained pils stream 21 exiting the exit portion 9 of the shredder section 8. The amount of air inspirated into the stream 21 entering the accelerator section 12 is adjustable by means of the adjusting mechanism 14. The adjusting mechanism 14 is comprised of a first clamp 15 that is adjustably connected to the shredder section 8 by means of one or more movable contacting members 31, typically a thumb screw. The first clamp 15 typically at least partially surrounds the shredder section 8, but need only be attached in a laterally movable manner of any kind. A second clamp 32 is attached in some manner, fixed or movable, to the accelerating section 12. In the nozzle embodiment shown in
The shredder pins 23 enter and exit the wall 29 at an angle in the range of about 90 to about 135 degrees measured from the upstream side of each shredder pin 23, as shown in
Another nozzle according to the present invention is shown in
To install thermal insulation using the nozzle of
The resultant just installed aqueous adhesive coated pils of mineral fiber insulation have a moisture content of less than about 5 wt. percent, based on the dry weight of the pils, more typically less than about 4 wt. percent, more typically less than about 3 wt. percent.
The variable speed of a motor 46 is such as to allow an RPM of the pin-wheel 39 to be high enough that the pins 41 impact entrained clumps and nodules of air entrained fibrous insulation with ample force to separate the nodules and clumps contacted into one or more pils. Typically the RPM capability of the pin-wheel drive will be a range of from about 1000 to about 6000 RPM. The upper portion of this RPM range will allow the nozzle 37 to also act as an accelerator for the pils and nodules and clumps resulting from impact by the pins, but not for clumps and nodules not impacted. The actual RPM used will depend upon the velocity of the air entrained clumps and nodules in the blow hose. In operation the RPM should such that the striking members of the pinwheel are moving faster than the clumps and nodules and typically at least by 1000 ft./minute and more typically at least by 2000 ft./min. The nozzle 37 can be used alone in the invention, but more typically the exit end 48 is connected to an accelerator section, such as the accelerator section 13 shown in
The nozzles systems used in the invention described above permit spraying dry or substantially dry fibrous insulation containing pils into cavities in a structure to form just-installed insulation having good integrity without having to use conventional restraining means like netting, etc. to secure the just-installed insulation in the cavities prior to applying wall board or other facing products. The absence of moisture in the dry installation eliminates the need to let the just-installed insulation alone to dry for the conventional period of at least one or two days before installing wall board—using the method of the invention permits the wall board to be installed immediately, or immediately following an optional conventional step of dressing of the just-installed insulation to remove excess thickness.
Several examples and ranges of parameters of several embodiments of the present invention have been described above, but it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the insulation field that many other embodiments by manipulation of the parameters following claimed invention. While most of the above discussion involves using the present invention in generally vertical wall cavities, this insulation product can be used to insulate attics or any area that can be reached with an array of the air suspended product.
