I'm throwing the bs towel on this one. You are either hireing woozes or rip offs that are rationalizeing high bills. Dealing with insulation go's with the job,btdt. I have walked the equivelent of round trip coast to coast in attics while feeling for joists beneath insulation to set my feet/hands/knees on. It is common pratice (actually code required) to install perminate catwalks from pull down stairs to hvac equipment when home is built,everyone else just has to suck it up or get a desk job. Next they will be asking you to furnish resperators and cold beer,it's also hot and dusty up there.

To give direct answers to your questions. Insulation will never return to full loft after being compressed. As your attorney and insurance carrier,I beg you not to lay loose boards in your attic for people to walk on. If the whinners want boards to walk on they should carry their own ,afterall your's is certainly not the only house with insulation in the attic.

I agree that competent craftspeople see this as routine and part of the job. However, if you want to lay down some plywood trails crosswise to the joists you needn't worry about compressing the insulation. In the first place, it's not going to compress to less than the height of the joists, which I assume are at least 2X6's, and that amount of insulation is substantial. What most people don't realize is that the first inch of insulation saves the most energy, the second inch not as much as the first, the third not as much as the second, etc. What this means thermodynamically is that by the time you get up to, say, 6" of insulation, you've reduced your heat loss by about 95% and there's not that much left to save: having, say, 3 more inches might save another 2-3%. The bottom line is that squishing down your insulation in a few places will have only a trivial effect on your energy bill.

You have to move the insulation and lay the plywood on the ceiling joists, otherwise you risk the insulation transferring your weight onto the ceiling drywall and popping out. A shovel or rake will suffice to move the insulation. Wear breathing protection, close off entrance to attic when moving cellulose, it makes a lot of dust.

Vith-

Good point. If it's only a couple of inches above the joists, it wouldn't be a problem, but higher than that could put pressure on the sheetrock beneath if the insulation is dense and it's compressed a lot. A simple hand compression test would probably answer this.

I generally just sweep the insulation off the tops of the joists with

my work boards before I lay them down. when finished in that area,

sweep it back with the board.

I've never used a shovel to move blown insulation, but I have

used an adjustable lawn rake. works well.

best of luck.

"I generally just sweep the insulation off the tops of the joists with

my work boards before I lay them down"

Did youall notice "MY BOARDS".not BOARDS HOMEOWNER FURNISHED???That's how real pros handle the problem,and I'll wager some homeowner didn't go on the net to find and pass solution on to Rater. Rather than cloud up and rain on you here and now, all you fellers are invited to my new thread under" Home Repair" titled What is reasonable to expect of pros."

Question is it ok to install a floor over blown insulation? I really need the storage and my attic is huge. A lot of wasted

Insulation is enclosed all the time. Put your floor down.

This has nothing to do with attics per se,but something far more important. I noticed that rater commented on this back when origionally posted in 2015. No reflection on anyone that posted in this thread but rater is gone and the forum is poorer for that. I may as well leave,90% of what come's down the pike on houzz isn't worth reading or commenting on imo.

My insulation is 16" of blown fiberglass. The ADA people are installing a lift track system and need to put in cats in the attic to screw the tracks to the ceiling. This means I need to move 30 feet+ by 24" of fiberglass. I suppose I could move some at a time for each cat to be placed