Very O/T Loft Insulation
Turbo Mini Forums

Right then heres one someone may have some experience with.

My house was extended less than 5 years ago. The new part of the roof space has plenty of thick insulation on top of the plasterboard for the ceilings.

However the existing part of the loft has some very old looking insulating material, that is only about 30mm thick.

One of my plans before the winter was to get some rockwool and re-do the insulation in the areas where its thin.

However I've heard lots in different places regarding grants from local government etc in order to get this done for free or vastly reduced prices, so before I just fork out and get bloody itchy doing it myself, I was wondering if anyone knows anything more about this, or has had it done themselves?

Cheers chaps....

i forget the name of it, but basically the government apparently decided the energy companies were making far to much money and forced them re-invest millions nto energy saving schemes, which as you say, manifests itself into grants etc....

look through the yellow pages and give a company or two a call for a quote. theyre all really clued up on it, and will tell you the ins and outs of it.

may differ from area to area, but i know that don my way you can generally get away with paying about 1/4ish of what it should cost because of the sceme youre talking about. my folks had the cavaties blown at there place (bloody huge great place) and i think it cost em something like £400 all in, the grant covered the rest of it!!

chances are, with the grant they'll be able to do it for a price that will make you stay out of the loft!!!!

And on the 7th day........... God created turbochargers!

also, you'll probably find that they will want to but more down in the extension area as well, as the guidlines on thicknesses have changed dramaticallly in the last few years..... (doubled iirc)

And on the 7th day........... God created turbochargers!

When we did one of y realtive's houses this way the grant was only available if you had no insulation presently. Still had to get itchy removing the old crap stuff before they would come and fit the new! Worth it in the long run though.

I wouldn’t use cavity fill insulation as it can allow interstitial condensation leading to dampness problems. Cavities were formed for a reason! As for loft insulation, buy the 1200mm wide rolls and cut them to size. The last stuff I used was 200mm Knauf insulation and cost me about £18+vat/roll from Travis Perkins. Budget on around 6-7 rolls for an average 3 bed semi

Ther is one make of loft insulation that is pink.It's called pink panther and is non itchy.

Metro turbo weekend driver,Mini turbo in the making again!

just had a sun lounge built there insulation under floor as in ceilling the aprentice done it, as itchy as hell, buy it yourself and layit not to dificult, but your like me were to big to go into loft

Yep the goverment will pay a percentage of the overall cost 50%'ish, (cavity wall aswell)
I had it done recently and we already had some old insulation which was upgraded, but cust contact a local firm for a quote and they do all the paperwork necessary (easy peasy)
The size of the areas done where, approx 60Ft x 20Ft & 50Ft x 25Ft at a cost of arround £500.

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c248/spe...er1/mini007.jpg

If it a'nt broke don't fix it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Send me a Pm Tom with your number, this is my business, i work for a firm that does this work nationwide.

Will be able to sort you out with a grant, might even be able to sort out some additional mates rates.

Cavity insulation doesn't cause any problem with damp (in fact reduces condensation) as long as proper survey of the cavity is carries out as the cavity needs to be clear of debris.

Loft should be 270mm (10-12inches), and at the current prices it's not worth getting dirty.

Anyway mate, should be able to sort you out if your interested.

Also don't worry about 30mm, this would be classed as empty anyway and we'd fit the full 270mm

when I did my old house a year or so ago I got a few quotes in, all around the £200 mark. I went down to Focus where they had a 2 rolls for the price of 1 offer and did it myself for less than half the price.

The grants do make it cheeper if you pay someone to do it. Although I am sceptical and still think that companies over charge and then also get the grant money.

I did pay for the cavity walls to be done in my current house and that had a 'grant'.

As the winter approaches all the big DIY stores have offers on loft insulation, so do it yourself.

http://www.twin-turbo.co.uk
http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/default.asp

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Dicanio - if the loft should be 10-12" what happens if it is boarded out? Do you just squash the 10-12" into the 4" void under the boards?

Mark; I'll talk with you about it when I come to fetch that gearbox buddy if that is OK? No major rush to get it done ATM.

tom pikie tony does this sort of thing and arranges grants

i've/we've been looking into this and indeed you only get a grant if you get someone in. When i number crunched i always worked it out as being cheaper (even when a grant was taken into account) to DIY. It also gives you the oportunity to have a poke around in the loft, which though may not be much fun can be a godsend if you spot something dodgy (which the fitters wont give a rats arse about)

Edited by andeh on 4th Sep, 2007.

I've seen the future and tbh its Pie

Hi Tom I work for an insulation company as a surveyor to assess and reduce household energy consumption. Different local authorities have there own grants in place and differ from region to region, ie in Bristol you pay a max of £95 toward cav and £95 toward loft insulation regardless of total cost, the rest is met by the local authority. But in some places in midlands you pay £149 toward cav and £199 toward the loft, and then might have to incur extra costs if your area exceeds their max meterage. My company work in conjunction with 40-50% of the local authorities and energy providers in England and 100% of Wales and can only offer grants that are eligible within the schemes that are available to the specific area. We cannot change or add to the these individual pricing schemes to appear to give higher reduced rates other than the grants themselves. Other companies will appear to do so but will only reduce their profit margins, if they can offer a lower price to a client in any of our areas. Best advice is to go on your own local authorities website (?.gov.uk) and see what you are eligible to.

Also cavities were introduced to stop any ingress of water penetrating from the outside wall to the inner wall. But progress and research has moved on since the mid 1930's when these were widely introduced. Insulating cavity walls has been proven to help reduce damp and condesation in most houses where there has been a problem prior to insulating, but it wont erradicate it. Depending on where your house is situated there are 2 main products for cavities fibre and bead (there are more). There are many different working modules to prove that insulation does work to greatly reduce your energy consumption and reduce the risk of damp/condesation. http://www.dgi.org.uk/ see the attached link to gain some more info to help make your mind whether or not to insulate.
If you need anymore info just ask
Tony aka pikey

Ifit aint naild down me taykinit! aka PikeyTony

Dicanio - if the loft should be 10-12" what happens if it is boarded out? Do you just squash the 10-12" into the 4" void under the boards?

No competent surveyor/fitter would allow this to happen because the material would be crushed and its thermal qualities would be greatly reduced, and also compressing 10"-12" into 4" under your boards might make it want to decompress into your ceiling making it bulge or in time fall from the joists!

Local authorities would like every household to be insulated to a certain standard. 250mm is required in lofts (270mm in some areas) but that is only for the material that is used (because local authorities/energy providers are paying toward the cost, insulation companies have to use the product that they specify, usually the cheapest). You could reduce the thickness of loft insulation by using a more dense product, which in turn will give you the required 'U' value of 250/270mm std fibre. All products will have info showing the 'u' value per mm, so you can reduce thickness to the required 'U' value specific to your area. Sounds complicated but to get the same 'U' value from 250mm std fibre you can use 6" foil backed rockwool! But check each product because they all have different values.
pikey :cool:

Ifit aint naild down me taykinit! aka PikeyTony