Advice: Loft conversion, pitched roof insulation

rossyl

rossyl

rossyl

Soldato
Joined
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Location
London
Hi,

Moved into a new flat, which is basically a loft conversion.

The rooms with pitched roofs seem to have very bad insulation. When it gets cold the room is almost colder than being oustide! You can almost feel the breeze!

The conversion was done in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

I was wondering what the best method of insulating the roof? Taking down the current plasterboard, and installing what? Any points to bare in mind?

There are also small storage cubby holes in the pitched roofs that seem to be very drafty, what could be done here?

All advice appreciated.

Thanks
R
 
I feel your pain, I recently moved out of a flat that sounds very similar to yours, and I used to be bloody frozen in the winter. To the point where I could actually see my breath sometimes. I used to come home from work, and get into bed fully clothed, just to keep warm.

Mine was rented though, so I couldn't do anything about it.
 
Rossyl, best bet is to phone your council and ask about home insulation schemes. They'll recommend someone to come round and look, and you'll get some of the final cost paid, if not all of it.

knip said:
Mine was rented though, so I couldn't do anything about it.
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Well if it was as genuinely bad as you say you could have gotten onto your agency/landlords association to get something done about it.
 
platypus said:
Well if it was as genuinely bad as you say you could have gotten onto your agency/landlords association to get something done about it.
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She gave me a heater in the end, but that was it. She lived in the same house as me, (downstairs) and her son is disabled, so removing the entire roof, wasn't a very practical option. A builder said the entire roof needed doing because of the "crap/cheaply done" job that had been done on it when they built the extension that was my flat.

She couldn't claim it on the insurance, and being a single parent wasn't able to afford it.
 
If you look around I think you can get grants for doing this sort of thing?

I'd have a look at Kingspan insulation or something along those lines, I think B + Q stock this in rolls and boards (like polystyrene). I'd also check to see whether your glazing is adequate as well if you can feel draughts?

But first of all i'd try and get a grant for the works!

EDIT: something like this.....

http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.j...s=?&fh_location=//catalog01/en_GB/categories<{9372016}%2fcategories%3C{9372050}%2fcategories%3C{9372229}&fh_refview=lister&ts=1252494368092&isSearch=false
 
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Ive moved out now, but I might well mention it, the building is listed though so that usually means a lot of hassle too.
 
Thanks guys.

I've had a look at government grants.

They only seem to be for cavity wall insulation and for lofts (i.e. flat lofts0. Annoyingly they don't seem to provide any grants for pitched roofs. Unless you know something i don't...??

I'll look into Kingspan and similar.

Any other ideas?
 
You'll probably find if you take the plasterboard off there's no insulation in there.

When you put the plasterboard back up fill the gaps with either 150mm thick glass insulation or get the stuff like polystyrene with foil on both sides, Get it to the thickness you need so it fills the gap completely. It's quite easy to cut; just score it on one side with a Stanley knife and snap it.
 
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