Boarding a loft - DIY'able or pay for the work?

jaybee said:
We have a mini loft above our old garage which is now a converted bedroom. I need to redo the shocking job someone did before as semi boarding it. The timbers are 35 x 70mm and are placed at 600mm centres apart.
The trouble is that it's obviously a tiny garage so the maximum ceiling height in the centre is only about 46 inches. I can just about kneel up fully in there. I obviously want to maximise ceiling height but still insulate it well.

I'm thinking of trying Celotex @robj20 like you did by doubling up the timbers. Did you go perpendicular to your existing timbers or run them straight along the length of the existing ones? Also, did you tape the Celotex along each timber to create a seal? I feel like it might become a faff cutting out around our ceiling downlights in that room.

Then I need to sort the loft hatch. It's one of those where you have to push a piece of wood up and into the loft and out the way, with no ladder. Sigh. Think I need me a whole new hatch that swings down.
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Straight along the length, glued and screwed.
I didn't tape, any gaps I used expanding foam.
 
Well, did not expect such a response - thank you to everyone for opining and giving me some useful information to read through.

Will check out your thread @Mysterae_ and update this one with any questions that come from reading through everyone's responses.

Appreciated!
 
I'm personally tempted to employ someone to insulate and board our loft for a few reasons;

1. It's a bungalow, therefore the loft space is rather substantial and needs insulating
2. Roof pitch is quite shallow, I'm 6ft 3 and can only stand in the very centre ridgeline with my head only 30mm from the ridge
3. To insulate it properly, we're going to lose 200mm of already precious head height
4. I'm heavy! I'm about 18 stone due to height/build - I really don't want any joist flex cracking newly plastered ceilings If my weight isn't distributed sufficiently.


It's going to be an absolute ball ache of a job to do myself, but I also am loathed to pay someone for such a simple job - decisions decisions!
 
PermaChanged said:
I'm personally tempted to employ someone to insulate and board our loft for a few reasons;

1. It's a bungalow, therefore the loft space is rather substantial and needs insulating
2. Roof pitch is quite shallow, I'm 6ft 3 and can only stand in the very centre ridgeline with my head only 30mm from the ridge
3. To insulate it properly, we're going to lose 200mm of already precious head height
4. I'm heavy! I'm about 18 stone due to height/build - I really don't want any joist flex cracking newly plastered ceilings If my weight isn't distributed sufficiently.


It's going to be an absolute ball ache of a job to do myself, but I also am loathed to pay someone for such a simple job - decisions decisions!
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Height is irrelevant you'll be on your hands and knees for 90% of it :D

Edit: unless the party line is agreement with you so you can get a man in? :D
 
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PermaChanged said:
2. Roof pitch is quite shallow, I'm 6ft 3 and can only stand in the very centre ridgeline with my head only 30mm from the ridge
Click to expand...

Absolute luxury that ceiling height. Can't stand in mine at all in the last two houses I've been in! ;)
Consider doing what we talk of above and using PIR boards to minimize height loss. The only reason not to is cost. They are about roughly 3 times more expensive than using insulation roll from what I can see. In terms of insulation properties, as long as you go to 100mm+ thickness PIR, you shouldn't lose out. It is roughly twice as efficient as fibre glass stuff in terms of U values for a given thickness. i.e. 300mm fibre glass would be roughly equal to 150mm PIR from what I can tell from a quick google.
 
I am tempted to PIR the main body (especially whilst I have a ceiling down in the bathroom to get up whole sheets).

I've been tempted to use in conjunction with this stuff to compensate for twisted and imperct joists too - found out about it after PIRing the vaulted ceiling in the kitchen - would have been a game changer for that!

https://insulationmerchant.com/products/gapotape-rigid-insulation-gap-tape-100mm

 
As others have said, you may as well DIY it. I'd say you're probably looking ~10-20% of the contractor cost if you DIY instead.

It gets more expensive if you want to do more (e.g. install a whole new floor that isn't attached to the ceiling below etc), but that'll be the case either way & is just dependnt on what you want up there & what you have available to work with.
 
PermaChanged said:
I am tempted to PIR the main body (especially whilst I have a ceiling down in the bathroom to get up whole sheets).

I've been tempted to use in conjunction with this stuff to compensate for twisted and imperct joists too - found out about it after PIRing the vaulted ceiling in the kitchen - would have been a game changer for that!

https://insulationmerchant.com/products/gapotape-rigid-insulation-gap-tape-100mm

Click to expand...

But how does getting whole sheets up help when you are going to have to typically cut them in half to place in between joists?
 
Not too hard of a job to do, as long as the loft is empty.
Only boarded down the middle of mine when I did it. Wish I would have done the whole lot. now it is full and I can't get arround it.
 
DIY.

Just just lift legs, chipboard/OSB boards and standard insulation.

Loft legs come in 170mm or 250mm versions. 170mm is probably fine, 250mm is better.

You don’t even need a circular saw if you don’t want to buy one. You can cut the boards with a hand saw easily enough, it will just take a lot longer.

Impact driver is also optional - a standard drill driver will do the job fine.

I did our large lift in a day, it was already boarded and full of stuff so that also included moving everything to one end, re-boarding and moving it all to the other end to do that bit.
 
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