Recessed halogen lights and loft insulation materials

[TheLeester]

Hi, my 1930s house has next to no insulation in the loft. I did board with 22mm T&G and I thought with the amount of junk that is on top of it would be plenty of insulation. The insulating properties of childrens toys dont seem to be as good as I thought so I plan to put down some proper insulation, probably 100mm of rockwall.

We have halogen recessed spotlighting throughout the house and so this is obviously intruding into the loft space between the joists. A fair amount of heat is given off by them. Should I leave a clearance around them or is the heat resistance of the insulation material such that it can safely been overlaid on the lights ?

 

[Damocles]

You must leave space around spotlights for them to cool.

I expect you only have room for 4 inches of insulation, but these days that is not considered good enough. Nowadays its 8in to 1ft of fibrglass or the like. some insulaters are better than others for the thicknes.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Put noggins between the joists to keep the insulation away.

You might also like to consider drilling a matrix of holes in the boards above the lights to allow the heat to escape, particularly if you're using dichroic lamps.

 

[Damocles]

just who decided dichroic lamps are a good idea for domestic situation? lamps designed to dump the heat in the space behind the lamp are positively evil

 

[securespark]

Dam

Unfortunately, heat rises!!

 

[Damocles]

So put them in the floor!but really, deliberately filtering the infra red so it comes out the back.

 

[plugwash]

Dam

Unfortunately, heat rises!!

by convection it does but i would imagine most of the heat from a bulb is radiant

dichorics are specilly deisgned to pump radiant heat mostly out the back great when used to light sensitive objects close up not so great under a floor or pumping heat directly into the loft beyond the houses insulating layer