Insulating and boarding the loft.... nothing simple :)

[redge44]

Hello

I'm a first time poster, and hoping to get some advice.

I'm aiming to insulate and board out my loft. Only for light storage, obviously not as a habitable area. As such my first stop was youtube where I have watched every video worth watching on how to insulate and board your loft.

Looks really easy of course, until I compare my loft to the shiny clean ones they are insulating in the videos

Mine is a horror show...

The house is terraced and about 100 years old (first time buyer) and looks like someone has made a very half arsed attempt at insulating and boarding in the past. We had a surveyor in from British Gas as they offer free insulation via government grant etc. Only to be told they cant do it and we should call a builder (very vague advice but it did come via the Mrs..)

I dont even know where to begin asking ... I guess what I am hoping is someone can look at the pictures and just offer opinions on what problems I may or may not face doing this myself or if by the looks of it I need to bite the bullet and pay the cost to get it done professionally. If I need to pay someone to get work done thats fine but its always nice to know exactly what needs doing and what you are paying for when you have to.

Any advice, opinions or general chit chat that might point me in a more informed direction would be greatly appreciated but if there is any more info I can provide please let me know.

Thanks

Andy (not so handy).

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[ree]

As you will well know, what you must first do is have a thorough clean out before you can know what you are dealing with. Why not even vacuum it ?

Use 600mm length chipboard T&G boards for walking on. The in-situ joist sections and plaster lath will be fragile - be careful.
As it is, it doesn't appear suitable for even light usage.

You appear to have a dropped ceiling in parts of the loft, perhaps over different rooms?

If you lay fibre glass insulation over the in place joists your boarding over will compress it.

 

[redge44]

Thanks Ree.

I think you are right about the drop ceiling but this is over the whole top floor...

For whatever reason (possibly fire or damp through the roof) they have installed the new ceiling below the old one.

How safe would it be to just fill the gap between the drop ceiling and the original joists with insulation then board over the joists?

 

[ree]

It would be as safe as the lowered ceiling is securely fixed. It seems to have been tried already but how effective it was as insulation, or would be, i dont know.

The extra weight of the lowered ceiling construction is being held up by the extra vertical hangers that you can see all over the loft. Dropped ceilings are typically lightweight.