Insulating inaccessible loft

nirajn123

We live in an Edwardian 4 bed terraced house, with the fourth bedroom at the back with its own mini roof/loft. The main house loft is insulated but from what I can see there is no way to get into the loft above this forth bedroom. There is a vent on the outside wall but not enough to gain access. While rest of the house is toasty this room gets really cold in winter (and too hot in the summer as it faces south). I'd like to see if I can get insulation in this room (I can't see if there is anything above the ceiling currently), I heard bad things about foam insulation, but are there any other options? The room is in a good shape and does not need redecorating.

Doozergirl

You could cut a human sized hole in the plaster and push someone small up there.  It's not pleasant but it's usually possible and it's worth it to be warm.  

You could reroof it get in from the top. 

Of if you went wild, you could rip the ceiling down, insulate it with solid insulation and have a vaulted ceiling for a visual change... 

JohnJ76

how high is the room? could you afford to lose a few inches from the ceiling height in which case you could do something along the lines of what this guy did to insulate a roof with a flat roof.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiUCmddx2Fg   i'd probably use fire retardant insulation though along with fire retardant everything. 

either way if you can't get access from the top and have to go through the ceiling to create a hatch, or rip it out for the vaulted option then its going to make a mess and you'll end up with some decorating to do.

FreeBear

Doozergirl said: Of if you went wild, you could rip the ceiling down, insulate it with solid insulation and have a vaulted ceiling for a visual change... 

When I insulated over my bay window, took the ceiling down and shoved loads of fibreglass insulation in. Could have used Celotex/Kingspan type boards, but I had plenty of the fibreglass to hand at the time.

silvercar

I would be wary of vaulting the ceiling. We have an extension room downstairs that was once a garage. We had celotex or kingspan boards internally on all the walls and created a very high vaulted ceiling. Thinking the former would help with keeping it warm and the ceiling visually. It is absolutely freezing. I’m guessing what we gained by insulating the walls has been more than lost by heat rising towards the high ceiling.

nirajn123

Thank you all for your inputs. Creating a hole and then adding insulation seems like a way to go. The house/this room is already has high ceiling so vaulted ceiling wouldn't make much sense. I could have used the other suggestion of adding boards at the top but there is also a full size window that goes right to the top so that solution won't work. Now just a matter of finding someone who can break and re plaster the ceiling. I have had such rotten luck finding anyone to do any job (am writing a separate thread about it after this).

mi-key

nirajn123 said:

Thank you all for your inputs. Creating a hole and then adding insulation seems like a way to go. The house/this room is already has high ceiling so vaulted ceiling wouldn't make much sense. I could have used the other suggestion of adding boards at the top but there is also a full size window that goes right to the top so that solution won't work. Now just a matter of finding someone who can break and re plaster the ceiling. I have had such rotten luck finding anyone to do any job (am writing a separate thread about it after this).

Make a phone size hole first and poke your phone up with the light on to see if you can see any existing insulation in there. If it is already insulated then you can decide if you want to make a big hole to add more, or attack it from underneath