Loft flooring

jonathon.beedie

Hi,
I am looking at putting some loft flooring in, just for storage of some items. I have a new home, building was completed in October 2009, so there is already insulation in the loft, which is very thick. So thick that it comes up over the joists. Now if I am to put boarding down, is it ok to compress the insulation under the boarding or would I have to add a level to the joists or something?
Cheers
Jay

sebastianj

Someone will be along to help,I think requirement for joists in the loft is 9 inches, I am also interested in knowing how?
seb

MX5huggy

The insulation will not work as designed if compressed (it works by holding air, still air is a very good insulator).

The ceiling joists should be strong enough to hold normal loft type stuff as long as its not 1000's of books or something.

So you could compress the insulation or take some out and suffer the slightly higher fuel bills. Strictly speaking this would contravene building regulations, but its not really an issue.

Build up the joists so the insulation remains as is.

Replace the wool insulation with a insulation board product, celotex or kingspan being the 2 big brands. This is twice as good at insulating as wool. so you need approx half the depth, the problem is that it is tempting to walk on it as it look strong but you would be walking in the ceiling. Polystyrene insulation is not as good, being rated about half way between celotex and wool for the same depth.

Gloomendoom

There has been a few threads on this topic on here. A quick search might prove fruitful.