Cold room solutions

luckycat99

Hi there

Not sure if this thread belongs here or not...

We have a small Victorian terrace with GCH and no double glazing. The back bedroom is out on it's own on the sticky out bit of the house. It is perishing in the winter - can see breath in front of my face. The loft space above this room is inaccessible and therefore uninsulated. I have looked into having insulation boards put up but this would mean pulling the ceiling down which seems silly when it's in such good nick.

I have double lined curtains up and have tried bubble wrap and double glazing film - neither of which made much difference. Last winter I used a portable electric heater which was fine but expensive to keep on all the time.

I have looked into secondary glazing and had a quote for £200 for temporary/removable glazing. The same glazer quoted £200 to replace the current glass panes with double glazed panes. This seems reasonable but we are saving for a wedding and would rather put the money towards the wedding.

I would be very grateful of any suggestions. I feel like I've hit a brick wall with this and I'm out of ideas.

Many thanks

dyrniboy

Hi, Rather than pull the whole ceiling down is it possible to make a small opening about the size of a loft hatch to just be able to get in to place the loft insulation ?. If you have any spare cash it might be an idea to internally insulate the external walls. As a victorian terrace you will almost certainly have solid brick walls which are very cold !.

phill99

I had exactly the same problem. I just cut a man sized access hole in the ceiling, squeezed up there and put 6" of insulation in then just made a loft hatch. This made a huge difference to the heat loss in the room and is very low cost.

I_have_spoken

Why not try the system they use to blow polystyrene beads into cavity walls, except poke the nozzle through some small holes in the ceiling to blow in a covering of insulation?

luckycat99

I hadn't thought of making a hatch. How much damage will it do to the surrounding ceiling? If I can just make a nice neat hole and turn it into a hatch - that sounds like a good idea.

Thank you

martinsurrey

luckycat99 wrote: »

I hadn't thought of making a hatch. How much damage will it do to the surrounding ceiling? If I can just make a nice neat hole and turn it into a hatch - that sounds like a good idea.

Thank you

I did this in a weekend on an inaccessible part of my loft void.

Done carefully it’ll do zero damage to the rest of the ceiling, total cost £15 (Hinges, MDF and half a length of architrave)

Roof insulation is by far the best idea!

Google "how to make a loft hatch" and read a few guides, the most important thing is to go slowly if you're not confidant

NewtoDIY

Installing a loft hatch properly is a job for a joiner. Probably cost 300-400 including wooden retractable ladder etc.

If you've no access to the loft, then it isn't as simple as just saying "do a loft hatch". What happens if you discover something up there you didn't expect to find i.e. pigeons, bats, old insulation, mice, wasps nests etc...
We also had a loft hatch installed. As soon as the joiner cut into the ceiling, decades of soot came pouring down. Fortunately the room was sealed off but that could have obliterated our house. We found lots of old fibreglass insulation covered in pigeon guano. No one could do anything in there so it had to all be removed and sanitised - a much larger bill than expected.

Double glazing is really important and worth having.

If you need a cheap fix, the first thing is to understand where your heat loss spots are. Buy yourself some inexpensive joss sticks, light them when it is cold and follow the trail of smoke. You'll be able to see clearly where you have draughts. Another very useful tool is an infrared heat detection gun. Black & Decker make one for 30 quid and you can point it at any spot giving you the temperature (lots of applications such as radiators, fridge etc.)

It might be that some silicon around window frames will help a little. Carpets with a good thermal underlay too.

Loft insulation is an excellent idea. Just be aware of the potential problems in an old house.

ka7e

Unless you can also fit some internal insulation to the walls (dry-lining etc) there can't be much advantage in fitting double glazing. If you are losing heat through 3 external walls and the ceiling - dg the window seems a bit pointless!