Hi all,
I moved into a 25 year old house a couple of years ago and am thinking about future improvements I can make.
The house originally had an integrated double garage. This has been converted to a single garage,and a dining room (which we rarely use in the winter for reasons that will become clear!). The dining room leads to a utility room and then the kitchen. None of these rooms have central heating (they have electric fan heaters). This area covers approximately half the ground floor and can get very cold in the winter.
Above the dining room/utility room is a front to back apex roof and a reasonably large loft area (approx 6ft at the highest point). It appears to have 1 layer of insulation in some places and 2 layers In other places (I think this is a result of lazy electricians moving insulation when installing spotlights). The is no insulation up against the roof. In the future I would like to board this out properly and make the access hatch larger to provide a useful storage area. At the moment I don't really need the storage, so that can wait, but I did wonder whether improving the insulation will help with the coldness.
When you consider that...
1.) the dining room is next to the cold garage (a thermalite brick wall separates them) with a heavy duty fire proof access door between them (which we use several times a day).
2.) the utility room has a half glass external door (which we use several times a day with cat flap (with 3 cats frequently going in and out).
3.) There are no doors between dining room, utility and kitchen
4.) There is no central heating in this part of the house.
Will adding extra insulation to the loft make much or any difference to the temperature in this area of the house?
My suspicion is that with all the other ways that heat can escape, anything gained by adding loft insulation is going to be lost anyway. However, a couple of months ago we put up a curtain between the kitchen and utility/dining room and we were amazed at what a difference it made (the kitchen is in the main area of the house so has a floor above it). It could be cold in the kitchen, but step through the curtain and it would be several degrees lower the other side.
Any thoughts appreciated. Thank you
I moved into a 25 year old house a couple of years ago and am thinking about future improvements I can make.
The house originally had an integrated double garage. This has been converted to a single garage,and a dining room (which we rarely use in the winter for reasons that will become clear!). The dining room leads to a utility room and then the kitchen. None of these rooms have central heating (they have electric fan heaters). This area covers approximately half the ground floor and can get very cold in the winter.
Above the dining room/utility room is a front to back apex roof and a reasonably large loft area (approx 6ft at the highest point). It appears to have 1 layer of insulation in some places and 2 layers In other places (I think this is a result of lazy electricians moving insulation when installing spotlights). The is no insulation up against the roof. In the future I would like to board this out properly and make the access hatch larger to provide a useful storage area. At the moment I don't really need the storage, so that can wait, but I did wonder whether improving the insulation will help with the coldness.
When you consider that...
1.) the dining room is next to the cold garage (a thermalite brick wall separates them) with a heavy duty fire proof access door between them (which we use several times a day).
2.) the utility room has a half glass external door (which we use several times a day with cat flap (with 3 cats frequently going in and out).
3.) There are no doors between dining room, utility and kitchen
4.) There is no central heating in this part of the house.
Will adding extra insulation to the loft make much or any difference to the temperature in this area of the house?
My suspicion is that with all the other ways that heat can escape, anything gained by adding loft insulation is going to be lost anyway. However, a couple of months ago we put up a curtain between the kitchen and utility/dining room and we were amazed at what a difference it made (the kitchen is in the main area of the house so has a floor above it). It could be cold in the kitchen, but step through the curtain and it would be several degrees lower the other side.
Any thoughts appreciated. Thank you
