Loft Storage

[DAPPH]

I was led to understand by my Canadian FIL ( Now deceased ) that you can over insulate if you go much above 16 inches in depth of blown or laid rock mineral wool and not get any sort of slight air movement through the insulation which will in turn make the lower levels take up moisture and over time they will become useless as the ceiling sweats & moulds develop .

NDIY
Knauf don't recommend mixing spun glass fibre wool & spun mineral rock fibre insulation . When we came her 17 yrs ago the original fibreglass had broken down to be an inchbor less allover h eroof void . i was advised to bag every thing up and vacuum clean th cielings so that not only could I clip all the new total rewiring up correctly we'd have a clean start for the 10 inches of new rock wool that was to be put in over the insulated central heating pipes .

Oct last year ( IIRC) saw us get a free insulation heating grant to upgrade things as the rock wool had sunk down to 5 inches thick .. This latest session has seen us get the latest super insulation and the central area from end to end be boarded over on joist stand offs ..it's made an amazing difference along with our putting in tripple glazing and a no letter box front door to our heating oil consumption by a reduction of 1200 litres in 15 months .

 

[Onoff]

In an ideal world I'd remove all the insulation, clean up and treat all the timber up there.

 

[Onoff]

It’s insulation. Why remove it?

Clean new over dirty old annoys me for one. Just seems wrong.

 

[dobbslc]

I vacuumed out the old vermiculite insulation where I was working in my eaves as I had to install 16 new 7x2 joists but left it in place everywhere else as it's nasty stuff! Mostly insulated up there now except the bit over my bedroom ceiling.
I did have it tested though!

 

[mtt.tr]

I vacuumed out the old vermiculite insulation where I was working in my eaves as I had to install 16 new 7x2 joists but left it in place everywhere else as it's nasty stuff! Mostly insulated up there now except the bit over my bedroom ceiling.
I did have it tested though!

I hate vermiculite.

 

[DAPPH]

In an ideal world I'd remove all the insulation, clean up and treat all the timber up there.

That's what happened in our place .. was annoyed to find two thickness of plasterboard nailed tothe sides of several roof trusses and the ceiling boards nailed into that ..they did the same trick to try and get a straight line on the slightly different sized factory made roof trusses . Once I'd raked most of the big stuff up and bagged it I used an industrial vacuum with a 20 mtr reinforced bit of 50 mm iD pond water hose to suck the dust & other crud out the roof void then repaired where Mr Nearly had hole-sawed through several trusses when he tried to put in recessed halogen lighting through out the bungalow , he didn't use any heat /vent cones so most of the wiring adjacent to the light fittings was well & truly cooked ..... baked almost to burning point. It also gave me the opportunity to put in timed extractors & low volt light uiits above the bath & shower area as well as a decent extractor hood piping in the kitchen to the outside .

 

[DAPPH]

I hate vermiculite.

Spread it over your gardens and turn it in before it blows away .

It acts as an aerator and moisture reservoir to keep the soil at a consistent level of dampness ..it's also a drainage aid too as well as slightly insulating the soil so it stays warmer in winter . For the last 15 & 1/2 years 1/3 of all my 250 square foot 900 mm high raised veg garden & 80 square foot of flower beds growth medium is coarse vermiculite . Plants & crops grow exceedingly well in such a light weigh growth medium mix .

 

[bricol]

In an ideal world I'd remove all the insulation, clean up and treat all the timber up there.

Its lovely job - rolling up all the insulation, crawling around with a pump sprayer trying to get all surfaces, especially those with holes in, and little piles of sawdust underneath.

And then when you roll it all back out . . . and need another 6 rolls of the stuff to fill the gaps you now have . . .

I'm really chuffed the builder of my house in 1970 used any old bits of timber he could find to construct the poor ventilated roof space . .