Foil insulation loft hatch/draught proof house/skirting boards

[Fender Stratoplaster]

Hi, I want to draught proof and insulate my hinged loft hatch - i've bought some foil insulation to stick on the inside of the hatch on the door that swings down...

The foil is quite thin, my plan was to staple it to the wood to fix in place along with some aluminium tape which I was going to line the hatch recess with too

Can I layer the aluminium foil by a few sheets to improve the amount of insulation or will this be inefficient? Also, to create a tight seal I bought some weather strip to stick around the edges

Does the above sound like the right way to go about it or am I being stupid?


Also we are getting a fair few draughts in our 30's build home, we recently had karndean laid on the flooring with insulation underneath but there are a few smalls gaps between the flooring and the skirting board. I know we have airbricks under the floorboards so I'm assuming draughts are coming through these

My plan was to stuff the gaps with weatherstrip to remove the draughts - then possibly seal with clear silicone or the like. Is this a good idea and could it potentially cause any damp issues?

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 174758]

My plan was to stuff the gaps with weatherstrip to remove the draughts - then possibly seal with clear silicone or the like. Is this a good idea and could it potentially cause any damp issues?

Should be OK, but may be awkward to achieve a good looking consistant result unless you are good at doing silicone work. Also limited as gaps of more than 4 or 5mm can look terrible if siliconed. An expanding backer such as Fossa Caulk Saver or the like will be cheaper than weather stripping and is designed for this purpose. A quicker and neater "one shot" solution is just to install Compraband, a compressed closed cell material which expands to fill gaps between flooring and skirtings, etc. Not cheap, but a lot less work and mess with no need to silicone as it automatically fills gaps but it really only works if the gaps are bigger than about 4 or 5mm

 

[Fender Stratoplaster]

Should be OK, but may be awkward to achieve a good looking consistant result unless you are good at doing silicone work. Also limited as gaps of more thsn r or 5mm can look terrible if siliconed. An expanding backer such as Fossa Caulk Saver or the like will be cheaper than weather stripping and is designed for this purpose. A quicker and neater "one shot" solution is just to install Compraband, a compressed closed cell material which expands to fill gaps between flooring and skirtings, etc. Not cheap, but a lot less work and mess with no need to silicone as it automatically fills gaps but itvreally only works if the gaps are bigger

Thanks, I've had a go with some cheap Chinese made weatherstrip found on amazon

Stuffed some under the skirt using a wall scraper and already made a noticeable difference. Gap is lot less than I realised, max 2mm so think I can live without the silicone finish

 

[Fender Stratoplaster]

This is the loft hatch in question...

 

[mcprinter]

Fellow 1930s.
Recently lined my slightly wonky, hinged hatch with Kingspan. I think 50mm. Glued with non-solvent grab
Very similar loft ladder setup

+1 for the expanding foam insulation under skirting

 

[Fender Stratoplaster]

Fellow 1930s.
Recently lined my slightly wonky, hinged hatch with Kingspan. I think 50mm. Glued with non-solvent grab
Very similar loft ladder setup

+1 for the expanding foam insulation under skirting

Thanks - looks exactly like the stuff I've just been using. He was a lot more delicate and tidy with his application though, I basically just stuffed it all in there but seems to be doing the job

 

[Mr Chibs]

Your loft hatch looks like it could be damp... hopefully it's not?

 

[Fender Stratoplaster]

Your loft hatch looks like it could be damp... hopefully it's not?

I didn't notice it being so, but now I'm worried - will check it out, we have insulation between the joists which is the minimum recommended and we recently had the loft boarded but the boards were laid directly onto the joists instead of on risers...