Boarding a loft

Ganga

I cleaned out the old insulation,looked like the stuff out of an old mattress(.make sure you wear overalls ,gloves and eye protection for your own safety ) boarded out an area of a few sq yards to take xmas decorations,old toys etc. then got rest insulated to new standard thru a grant ( can get it free from some energy companies )
Do not use the loft as a storage room,it needs to breath to stop damp problebs.

martinsurrey

d0nkeyk0ng wrote: »

I was looking at Kingspan/celotex last night. This seems to need much less space than mineral wool/rockwool insulation but I'd still need to raise the floor to add enough in. Is this correct?


I originally had plans to put a bookshelf up there but then when I went up, I realised how limited I was in storing stuff up there with respect to weight.


I think the joists are only 3" tall so I'm not going to get much insulation in. All of the insulation is lying in a heap over one of the bedrooms and this bedroom gets very warm, even in winter. It made me realise the importance of loft insulation.


I was looking at Loft Zone which does something similar (albeit more expensively).

do it properly.

1) remove everything (old insulation and boarding).

2) use loft legs
Loft legs

3) cross lay insulation as deep as you can (with 75mm joists and 150mm legs you can lay 100mm insulation in each direction
insulation

4) use decent flooring
moisture resisitant flooring

leave a few inches around the edges of the loft for ventilation, and only store fairly light things up there in general only store what you can easily carry up, and don't pile on top of each other.

stator

EssexExile wrote: »

The trouble with boarding on stilts or legs is that you lose headroom. I insulated between the joists then put aluminium foil insulation over that then boarded. I've no idea what the u value is but it made me feel better.

That's why I used boards on the joists for the central section walkway so I can fully stand up and then loft legs only in the eaves. You lose some heigh in the eaves but you've still got a huge area.

d0nkeyk0ng wrote: »

I was looking at Kingspan/celotex last night. This seems to need much less space than mineral wool/rockwool insulation but I'd still need to raise the floor to add enough in. Is this correct?

I added in strip wood of 5mm to pad it out slightly. So now I have 75mm of PIR board and a small gap for the cables. How much space do you have under the boards?

Gloomendoom

martinsurrey wrote: »

do it properly.

2) use loft legs

Loft legs will create space for insulation but will do absolutely nothing to add stiffness the existing joists. The existing 3" joists are probably close to their limit just holding the ceiling up