When you think about adding insulation to your home, the image that usually comes to mind is long strips of fiberglass insulation in faced batts or unfaced rolls. Batts of faced fiberglass insulation is the standard material used to insulate wall and joist cavities during new construction, and improving the insulation in attics often involves laying a "blanket" of unfaced fiberglass rolls across the attic floor.

But fiberglass batts and rolls have limitations for retrofit applications, and homeowners are wise to consider blow-in insulation as an alternative for improving the home's insulation R-value. R-value is the industry standard for measuring the resistance value of specific insulating materials; the higher the R-value, the better the material insulates.