The consensus here seems to be that loose fill cellulose insulation will slip or slump if installed on a slope great than 4:12 or 5:12. However, I didn’t run across an article or post describing exactly what the results of slipping or slumping were, so I thought I’d see for myself. And see if there was a way I could make loose fill work with my overly-steep trusses.

I assume what happens is, if installed on a steeper slope, the cellulose will eventually slip or slump until it reaches its angle of repose (equal to the angle of a 4:12 or 5:12 pitch).

To account for this, I installed 48″ long baffles between each truss. The trusses are 12:12 top chord/6:12 bottom chord energy heel scissor trusses, spaced 24″ OC. See attached sketch for details.

The sketch show three dashed lines: Condition A—the blue line, corresponding to 18″ of unrestrained loose fill, which has slumped to the angle of a 4:12 pitch; Condition B—the green line, corresponding to 18″ of loose fill restrained by two Insulweb ‘dams’ stretched perpendicular to the trusses, such that even if the cellulose does slump to 4:12, the results will still be similar to loose fill without slip or slump, as in Condition C (the orange line). Note that in all cases, the baffle extends above the top of the loose fill.

I expect installing Insulweb dams will be more labor but less materials than simply blowing in loose fill until 18″ is achieved at the peak, and that’s the option I’m going to try. I’m hoping the dams will result in a more or less uniform layer of cellulose, a bit thicker in some spots, but all areas at least 18″ when installed (16″ after settling). I should be blowing in the cellulose this week or early next.