Background to the invention The prior art discloses a wide variety of spray-on cellulose insulation materials and systems for spraying insulation on ceilings, floors, and walls. It also discloses various"stabilized"spray-on or blow-in insulations for cavity walls that include loose fill fibers, moisture, adhesive material or both, to produce a somewhat rigid, stabilized mass with a desired reduced density. Such a mass may exhibit some wet strength and may be self-supporting temporarily.

Such a prior art method may employ dry adhesive material that is activated by water. Certain of these prior art methods result in wasting an amount of sprayed-on or blown-in material that exits the area to which they are to be applied. Such material that is not deposited at the desired location, typically in the form of dust and overspray, must be collected and recycled or disposed of. Moving air can affect a surface to which such a mixture is applied, removing fibers from the surface and relocating them in an undesirable location. Such a mixture may settle and pack down in an undesired manner and may be easily damaged by workers and tradespeople working in the location.

A variety of known two-component adhesive resins are used with sprayed-on and blown-in fibrous cellulose insulating materials. The two components are generally designated as an"A"component (e. g. sodium silicate, polyvinyl alcohol, starch) and a"B"component (e. g. acrylic, vinyl acetate, vinyl latex). Such adhesives

can impart wet strength to a fibrous mixture and adhere the fibers to a surface or substrate.

U. S. Patent 4, 187, 983, co-owned with the present invention and incorporated here fully for all purposes, discloses prior art systems for applying fibrous cellulose insulation material with an adhesive. U. S. Patent 4, 360, 440, co-owned with the present invention and incorporated fully herein for all purposes, discloses insulating fiber mixtures that include water, fibers, and an adhesive that is a combination of sodium silicate and an acrylic resin. U. S. Patents 5, 684, 068 and 5, 853, 802, both co- owned with the present invention and fully incorporated herein for all purposes, disclose spray-on insulation compositions with cellulose fibers and a polyvinyl alcohol adhesive and, in certain aspects, an acrylic resin.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION There has long been a need for : an effective spray-on fibrous cellulose insulating mixture for walls and floors and systems for using them ; mixtures and systems which reduce the amount of undeposited material ; mixtures and systems that reduce or eliminate the need for protective netting or barriers used with certain prior art methods and/or reduce or eliminate the need for such netting used to capture blown loose materials ; mixtures and systems which result in a uniformly less dense product, but a product with sufficient wet strength and sufficient set strength to inhibit or prevent undesirable settling and packing ; * a mixture that maintains a significant amount of or substantially all its original installed density and integrity without inordinate settling.

Some or all of the above needs are addressed by the subject matter claimed in any of claims 1, 20-23 and 26, below, to which attention is hereby directed.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED FEATURES The present invention, in certain embodiments, discloses a spray-on fibrous cellulose insulation mixture that includes the insulating cellulose fibers and only one component of a two-component resin adhesive material (with or without added water in the adhesive), e. g. only an A component ; or such fibers with an A component with an amount of a B component-with or without added water. The present mixtures may employ relatively less adhesive than prior art mixtures, the water-to-adhesive ratio may, therefore, be increased and the water-to-fiber ratio may be reduced.

In certain embodiments the fibers may be mixed with an"alcohol"adhesive e. g., but not limited to, polyvinyl alcohol adhesives, (e. g. but not limited to those disclosed in U. S. Patents 5, 684, 068 and 5, 853, 802) or with an alcohol containing adhesive. In systems that use spray-on nozzles, this mixing may occur at the nozzle.

In one system, fibrous cellulose is supplied in one line to a plural-component spray nozzle, and an adhesive component (e. g., but not limited to, an A component or alcohol-containing adhesive as described above) is supplied to the nozzle in another line. The resulting spray-on mixture is deposited on a first interior side of a wall which may have adjacent to and spaced-apart from it another wall member board or sheathing to form a cavity therebetween into which the mixture is sprayed or applied.

The use of certain mixtures according to the present invention may result in relatively greater wet strength of the mixture, less undesirable setting and/or packing of the material, and a final product whose installed, set volume is very close to its volume when first applied.

Such a mixture may be applied to a floor. In such methods, the adhesive-to- fiber ratio is increased. The mixture may also be applied into a cavity formed in a floor/ceiling combination or assembly.

Amongst the things that may be provided by this invention are : * unique, efficient, non-obvious safe fibrous materials for use in spray-on insulations for walls and floors ; * methods of their use that employ both or a single component of a two- component adhesive resin ; \'methods that use a PVOH (polyvinyl alcohol) adhesive which is not"cooked" with an acidic medium, or a PVOH adhesive cooked with the addition of an acidic medium and/or with a water-reducible adhesive such as, but not limited to, polyvinyl acetate adhesives, acrylic copolymer adhesives, or a combination thereof ; * insulation with sufficient wet strength to facilitate emplacement in a cavity wall ; * insulation material which uses fibrous materials that have had an acidic medium, e. g. boric acid, pounded into the fibrous material ; * insulation materials and methods of their use which reduce the amount of undesirable dust and undeposited materials on walls and floors ; and * materials which provide adequate rigidity and which alleviate undesirable setting and packing.

In certain embodiments of the present invention a mixture is produced for spraying onto a floor (either or both surfaces-top and/or bottom) or onto a wall or part of a wall to produce an insulated section thereof. The applied material may or may not, according to the present invention, be enclosed between panels or boards and/or sprayed into a pre-built wall or under-floor cavity. For example, an outer wall surface and an inner surface of house exterior sheathing may define a wall cavity, or a

bottom surface of a floor and top surface of a ceiling or of some other board or sheathing may define a cavity beneath the floor into which the material is applied.

The mixture may have the following properties : Using an A component only Ratio : Water to Adhesive (by volume as 3 : 1 to 15 : 1 applied) Adhesive Mix/Fibers 0. 05 to 0. 30 (gallons of adhesive solution-or mixture- per pound of fibers) In one preferred mixture using an A component only as the adhesive, the ratio of water to adhesive is 10 to 1 and about 0. 10 gallons of mixed adhesive are used per pound of cellulose fibers. When applying such a mixture to a floor, e. g. to the underside of a floor, the ratio of adhesive to water may be increased and the ratio of adhesive mix to pounds of fiber may be increased. Such"A component only" mixtures may be applied to a wall e. g. blown onto a wall with a water mist or sprayed onto a wall, into a wall cavity, or into an attic area, including the top side of the attic floor, the inside of the attic walls, and/or the underside of a roof.

Using an A and B component Ratio : Water to Adhesive 3 : 1 to 15 : 1 Adhesive Mix/Fibers 0. 05 to 0. 30 Ratio : A to B 9 : 1 to 1 : 9 In one preferred mixture the A to B ratio is 5 : 1 ; the water to adhesive ratio is 10 : 1 ; and about 0. 13 gallons of mixed adhesive and water is used per pound of fibers.

A mixture according to the present invention may be applied in an attic as follows :

Ratio : A to B 9 : 1 to 1 : 9 Ratio : Water to Adhesive 10 : 1 to 50 : 1 Adhesive Mix (gallons)/Fibers (lb) 0. 01 to 0. 10 In one preferred mixture, the A to B ratio is 5 : 1 ; the adhesive/water mix ratio is 10 : 1 ; and about. 05 gallons of adhesive-water mixture is used per pound of insulating fibers.

One particular mixture according to the present invention is as follows : 1 to 20 parts A by volume 5 to 20 parts water by volume In one preferred mixture there is 1 part A to 4 to 15 parts water ; and, more preferably, 8 to 15 parts water. Such a mixture (between about 0. 05 and 0. 30 gallons) of A plus water is then combined with a pound fibers. In one aspect the A component is PVOH.

The fibers may be combined with a polymeric adhesive in which at least some of the units are derived from an alcohol. Thus the adhesive may be polyvinyl alcohol homopolymer or a water soluble copolymer in which some or most of the polymerized units are polyvinyl alcohol units. The alcohol-containing adhesive may be a PVOH cooked without the addition an acidic medium or pH adjusting medium.

As is well known in this art, polyvinyl alcohol disperses in cold water and dissolves when the water is heated, and he expresion"Cooked"refers to the operation of heating a dispersion of polyvinyl alcohol in cold water to a temperature at which the dispersed PVOH particles dissolve to form a true solution. Cooking may be carried out by raising the temperature of water and PVOH, e. g. to between about 190 to 225 degrees Fahrenheit while agitating the water and PVOH and maintaining the raised temperature for sufficient time to produce the desired solution, e. g. for an hour or longer.

In certain embodiments of insulating material produced according to the present invention a surfactant is used and/or a cross-linking agent. Any suitable surfactants and cross-linking agents may be used.

The fibers in any mixture described above may be treated with an acidic medium, such as borates and boric acid. This"treating"is done in one aspect by pounding or grinding the acidic material into the fibrous material, e. g. with a suitable hammer mill or other apparatus. Preferred resultant densities (density of the material after application and drying) for material according e. g to be used to fill a cavity wall are about 1. 5 to about 6. 5 pounds per cubic foot and for certain embodiments between 1. 5 to 2. 5 pounds per cubic foot. Preferred resultant densities for attic floors are between about 1 to about 4 pounds per cubic foot, and more preferably between about I to about 2 pounds per cubic foot (and in one aspect 2. 0 or less).

In one particular mixture according to the present invention, to one part (by volume) of an A component such as a PVOH adhesive is added 4-15 parts (by volume) of water. To the resulting mixture is added between 0. 05 gallons to. 30 gallons (of adhesive + water) per pound of fibers. Another particular mixture for use in this invention has about 0. 08 to about 0. 18 gallons of a component A or of components A plus B per pound of fibers. In one embodiment 1 gallon of adhesive is used to spray-on 220 pounds of fibers at 0. 05 gallons/pound when reduced at a ratio of 10 : 1 with water.

In any of the above methods, for a mixture (adhesive + fibers) applied e. g. on the top face of an attic floor, settlement and packing down can take place. It is preferred that such settling be no more than 5% and, with the methods and materials described for the preferred embodiments above, that it may be no more than 2. 5%.

The present invention, therefore, in at least certain but not necessarily all preferred embodiments provides a method for applying fibrous cellulose insulation to a wall, the method including mixing cellulose fibers with an adhesive in aqueous solution thereby producing a mixture, and applying the mixture to a surface of a wall.

Such a method may have one or some (in any possible combination) of the following features : * the adhesive is an alcohol-containing adhesive ; * the alcohol-containing adhesive is a PVOH adhesive ; * the PVOH adhesive is cooked with or without the addition of an acidic medium ; * the adhesive is present as between about. 05 to about. 30 gallons of adhesive- in-water solution to about a pound of fibers ; * the adhesive is present as between about. 08 to about. 18 gallons of adhesive-in-water solution to about a pound of fibers ; * the ratio by volume of water to adhesive in the aqueous solution containing adhesive is between 3 : 1 to 15 : 1 ; * the adhesive is an A component only adhesive ; * the ratio of water to adhesive in the aqueous solution is 10 to 1 and. 10 gallons of the solution is used per pound of cellulose fibers ; * the adhesive is a B component only adhesive ; * the adhesive is an A + B component adhesive ; * the ratio of A component to B component is between 9 : 1 to 1 : 9 ; \'the ratio of aqueous solution with adhesive (gallons) to fibers (pounds) is. 05 to. 30 ; * the ratio of A component to B component is 5 : 1 ; # the ratio of water to adhesive in the aqueous solution is 10 : 1 ; and about. 13 gallons of mixed adhesive and water is used per pound of cellulose fibers ; # prior to the mixing step, treating the cellulose fibers with an acidic material ; # the treating is done by pounding acidic material into the cellulose fibers ;

* the acidic material is boric acid ; * the resultant density of the applied mixture is between 1. 5 to 6. 5 pounds per cubic foot ; * the resultant density of the applied mixture is between 1. 5 to 2. 5 pounds per cubic foot ; * the resultant density of the applied mixture is between 2. 0 or less ; * the mixture is applied by spraying it onto the wall ; * spraying the mixture with a spray nozzle onto the wall, the method including introducing the cellulose fibers under pressure through a first hose into the spray nozzle, introducing the adhesive in aqueous solution under pressure through a second hose into the spray nozzle ; and spraying from the spray nozzle the mixture onto the wall ; * applying the mixture onto the wall to a thickness of at least 4 inches ; applying the mixture onto the wall to a thickness of at least 6 inches ; * the mixture occupies a first space as applied and, upon setting, occupies at least 95% or 99% of said first space ; * the mixture occupies a first space as applied and, upon drying, occupies at least 99. 5% of said first space ; * a barrier is spaced-apart from and adjacent the wall forming a cavity between a surface of the barrier and a surface of the wall, the mixture deposited within the cavity ; wherein the mixture occupies a first space as applied and, upon settling and drying, occupies at least 95%, 99% or 99. 5% of said first space.

The present invention, therefore may provide a method for applying fibrous cellulose insulation to a floor, the method including mixing cellulose fibers with an adhesive in aqueous solution thereby producing a mixture, and applying the mixture to a surface of a floor. Such a method may include one or some (in any possible combination) of the following :

* wherein the mixture is applied to a floor, an underside of the floor or to a cavity on the underside of a floor formed by a floor bottom surface and another member spaced-apart therefrom ; * the resultant density of the mixture is between 1 and 4 pounds per cubic foot, or between 1 and 2 pounds per cubic foot ; \'the mixture is applied to a top side of the floor ; * the floor is the floor of an attic ; * the amount of settling after application and drying is no more than 5%, no more than 1%, or no more than 0. 5% ; and/or wherein the amount of settling after application and drying is no more than 2. 5%.