Insulation

I live in an 1880s house in eastern Pennsylvania. Recently, I cleaned out the bat guano and old fiberglass insulation from under the peak of the roof above a small 100 sq ft) room. Access is through a 2 x 2 1/2' removable panel in the ceiling of a small cupboard on the interior side of the room. The ceiling  this room slopes down to the exterior. This space below the roof peak is very tight - I'm not a big person (5' 4", 120 lbs) and cleaning out the guano and pulling up the old yucky insulation from the slope of the ceiling was very awkward, difficult and exhausting - plus I'm I'm 74!. I don't think - don't want to - could do the reverse - place the new rolls of insulation on the horizontal and then down the slope of the ceiling, especially toward the outside end of that space. It will be all I can do to completely finish vacuuming out the little guano that remains.

Any suggestions for a more natural blown in type insulation?

Hi Susan,
I am a fan of the batt insulation, but I can see where a crawl space attic would be a good fit for blown in insulation.

The stuff I see most often is cellulose based... newspaper, cardboard, even bluejeans. Fairly innocuous, but they do add fire and bug retardants to it.

I do see that there is a rockwool blown in insulation option now... which is also fairly innocuous. It is the left over slag from making steel, where they super heat it and spin fibers. Naturally flame and bug resistant.

is it possible to get help, rockwool batts the correct size work well.

I might be able to get help but the space is still so tight. My dad must have put or had that insulation installed - no idea how he did it!

I feel for you Susan! My house roof is all combed ceilings like that and the top flat bit is literally a crawl space that you have to undulate to get past the rafters - not fun! I'm actually thinking of insulating by ripping the ceiling out and doing it all from underneath, including the sloping section which is most of the surface area. We need a vapour barrier and a greater depth of insulation than the current arrangement of boards tacked on the back of the rafters allows , so for us that seems the easiest way forward, although I'm not looking forwards to the mess! The blown options here don't seem to be a DIY option so end up quite expensive.

Is roof removal practical?

Yikes - no roof removal - it still has the original slate roof plus it's all very well built and solid.

I'll check with some local folks about blown in since there are many choices. I should be able to rent one from Home Depot and we have another rental company nearby that might have one. This is a very populous area so I should be able to find one.

Blow in cellulose is not too bad to apply, but it is a 2-3 person job; one person blowing; one person feeding the hopper; ideally one person running between.  For a small area/volume one person might be OK.