Loft Insulation - Earthwool super-cheap at Homebase

[coofercat]

Summary: For the sake of about £50, you can make your property warmer, cosier and cheaper - pretty handy in this cold weather!

The previous owners of our flat has put down some fibreglass loft insulation (in the joists, and across them in most places), but then put boxes on top, which compressed it. Then, either we, or any number of other people have walked about up there, lifted insulation and not put it back or whatever.

Anyway, as you may have noticed, it's got pretty cold here in Blighty (even down here in London). Waking up to a cold flat (esp, the bathroom!) motivated me to get the loft sorted out.

A quick trip to Homebase revealed they're selling Earthwool for either £10 a roll, but on a two-for-one deal, or now they seem to be just £5 per roll. Either way - it's an absolute bargain, and apparently carbon-zero to produce. It's super-easy to work with, and whilst you wouldn't want to roll about in the stuff, it's a lot more pleasant than the old fibreglass stuff.

I can fully recommend getting up in your loft and plumping up your insulation a bit. Even the fibreglass stuff is cheap if you want that, and it's made one heck of a difference to our flat. It's colder now than when I started the work, and the flat is warmer, heats up more quickly, loses heat more slowly and generally just feels a bit cosier than it used to.

I went a bit crazy and did loads of work on the job. I pulled up all the old fibre glass stuff from one side of the loft and piled it on top of the other side. I also put down lots of boarding on top of some 2x4 (we had some old doors, shelves etc up there, so I just used those). Right now, even under the boarding, we've got about 200mm of insulation. Elsewhere, it's more like 350mm. I was aiming to make sure that even in the low bits, it's still at least 270mm (like the Part L regulations require for new builds).

Including the 2x4 and the Earthwool, I reckon I've spent about £100 in materials, and a couple of days of my time. If I hadn't have done the boarding, I'd have spent about £50 and probably an afternoon. I reckon if there had been absolutely no insulation at all, I'd have probably only put up about £100 worth of Earthwool. Best money I've ever spent

[handyman]

what was the thickness and width of the homebase stuff?...........just done an other few houses in the bnq stuff. Its a 200mm thick triple roll (1.1m) for £5.........good price indeed

[coofercat]

The stuff I got was 170mm - I didn't see any other thicknesses around, although they were also doing half-width rolls of spaceblanket (I think it was called) on a "buy 1, get three free" deal.

One other thing was that I found the stuff nearer the outside of the roll puffed up much better than the stuff in the middle of the roll. I think it all got up to the stated 170mm or more, but just something to remember.

Either way, getting as much insulation up in your loft as you can looks like a super-cheap job right now (and you can show off how good you are at it by how long the snow or frost stays on your roof ;-)

[handyman]

what width?

[handyman]

http://www.homebase.co.uk/webapp/wcs/st ... 4014&c_3=3|

this stuff?

[coofercat]

I just found a link to it on their site. Here's the stuff I used:

dead link removed



If that awkward link doesn't work, it says this:

# Earthwool zero carbon loft insulation.
# Made from recycled glass bottles.
# Thickness: 170mm.
# Size: 7030 x 1140mm.
# Coverage: 8.01 square metre.
# For DIY use only - This product is subsidised by E.ON under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target. It is not for use in new buildings.
# Further subsidies cannot be claimed by professional installers on this product. Max purchase 100 square meter per customer.

One other thing for us DIYers - we could only fit two rolls in the car at once, so it took us a few trips to enough for the whole job ;-)

[richjenn13]

Really good deal! But how is this "Earthwool" to handle?

I got so fed up with the itchiness of Rockwool etc, that I've gone over to polyester rolls.

Can't compare on price with this sort of deal [I expect to pay approx £7 per 1.5sq m roll for recycled Polyester, even on "half price"], so if the Earthwool IS genuinely OK to handle, that would be really good to know!

Thanks!!
richjenn13

[coofercat]

As I say, I'm not sure you want to roll around in Earthwool, but it's is much, much more pleasant than fibreglass insulation.

I'd recommend a good pair of gloves and a dust mask/respirator, and I'd also recommend you cover your arms and legs - I personally bought a £5 paper worksuit and taped the ankles to my socks (although I had fibreglass to work with as well as Earthwool). If your loft is like mine - ie. quite dirty regardless of the insulation, then covering up is well worth it, even if the insulation doesn't require it. It'll cost you an extra £10, but saves you untold cost to your health.

All that said, I'd quite happily go up there and lay a bit of Earthwool in shorts and a t-shirt (and gloves), whereas I wouldn't touch fibreglass insulation without gloves, let alone any other cover-up.

[gib_goblin]

I've got a loft with glass fibre between the joists only about 50-70mm

Its awful dusty - is there any benefit to using a vacum to try and clean up the dust and PVA the brickwork to seal it? Does the dust come in beneth the roof felt?

What about putting insulation upto the eaves? do you need to leave any clearances?

[coofercat]

Well, there's two ways you can do this:

1) The best possible way
2) A good enough way

I'm personally a bit anal about these sorts of things, and to my girlfriends complete dismay tend to do a "pretty good job", rather than "just good enough". If I was you, I guess I'd be moving fibreglass from one half of the loft to the other to fill up the joists, and then adding earthwool where there was now nothing. Then add a layer or two across the joists for maximum benefit. I'm not 100% sure about this, but I'd guess the bit of insulation between the joists is the most important of all, so it's worth paying attention to.

I'm no expert, but I don't think you should stuff insulation into the join between roof and joists (ie. the slopey bit you can't reach very easily!). You need to ensure your loft space is well ventilated, and airflow comes from outside through the eves. I do have some insulation there, but there's plenty of spare space between it and the roof felt to allow for ventilation.

I'm not sure I'd do any vaccuuming - the dirt (in my loft at least) would easily block up my Dyson, and would probably fill it in minutes (and I'd probably end up sucking up insulation when I didn't mean to!). However, I did, scoop up any rubbish, rubble, old wiring, pipes, drill bits (!), broken slate tiles and bits of wood that were in my way. I've filled up about half a dozen rubble bags with the rubbish from up there, and there's still plenty more I'm ignoring ;-)

As for the source of the dirt, well, I have no idea. London's air isn't the cleanest anyway, so I'd expect a bit of black sooty stuff anywhere that air comes in. As I say, there's all manner of rubbish in my loft, presumably from previous generations, so I'd say that's where most of the dirt has actually come from. I'm not sure you'd ever get it "clean", and even if you did, it probably won't stay that way. Once it's all covered up in layers of insulation though, it does stop looking like a problem though ;-)

[gib_goblin]

Thats great advice thanks, if I'm still gona use the loft for storage though how about flooring. With the insualtion across the beams I don't want it compressed.

If I build a section what size beams how best to fix them?

[coofercat]

Well, there are a few ways to board a loft. My personal preference was to buy some 2x4 and lay that across the joists. I just nailed it down so it didn't move about, and then put my boarding over the top. Obviously, make sure the whole space between the joists and the new 2x4 is nicely filled with puffed up insulation.

One piece of advice though: You'd be amazed how much 2x4 you actually need for a relatively small amount of boarding. I've got an area about 2 meters square to finish off (not all boarded) - it's the fiddly bits around the loft hatch, and a little "walkway" to a big square area I've got boarded. It doesn't look like much, but it's going to need 12 meters of 2x4 to do (all cut up into little pieces). Incredible!

There are other ways to do this, perhaps with less work/materials. I already had boarding materials, so did the least I could to get the job done. If you're starting from scratch, then things may be different.

Since we're in the Money Saving section, I'll also say that my local timber merchant is *much* cheaper than Homebase or B&Q. If you're in south London, head to Acre Lane Timber, or even Fulham Timber Merchants (both within 5 minutes of each other). You'll have to get ready to "talk tradesman", but they're both very friendly and actually very happy to help out a "newbie". Either they, or your local friendly DIY shop will probably be able to guide you on your boarding alternatives too, if you like.