Having frozen every night for the last two winters I'm looking for suggestions on how best to insulate my attic bedroom without having to take the roof off.

The house is a 3 bed victorian terrace, I'm guessing the room was converted to a bedroom as it is now in the 50's, there is a large single glazed dormer which I'm going to try and find something to insulate the glass with, and I've got some blackout curtains which help a little to keep the cold out

The problem really is that between the bedroom and the roof is just a couple of plasterboard walls....... I know nextdoor had their roof re-done over the summer and they insulated at the time but I can't afford at the moment to take the roof off to lay insulation... Any ideas????

If all else fails I've gone out and got me an electric blanket.......

Another possibilty is to remove the plasterboard from the bedroom ceiling, insulate it then rebaord and skim the ceiling... although again not a cheap alternative.... but cheaper than taking the roof off!!!!!

Steve..

you could board over the existing finish with kingspan insulating boards

a cheaper option may be to batten the walls/ceiling and line them with a suitable fabric (I'd suggest flame retardant)

The window is probably your biggest issue, so it's worth getting in touch with a company like frame-ups at hillsborough to quote for putting double glazed panels into the existing frames rather than destroying the look of the existing dormer

the most important part is all the heat escaping through the roof as everyone knows heat rises if that is well insulated then that heat can bounce round the room. we can do this for you and will not be as expensive as you may think.. you may also be losing heat if frame of window is damaged may be cost effective to replace the dormer if not some re furb work on it and new glazing will do the trick

We did the same style house at firth park at the beginning of the year for a froum member there are a few photos in the gallery section.
They wanted the attic and 1st floor taking back to brick and refurbishing.
While the loft ceilings were down we put in 25mm of kingspan between the rafters and also put a new loft window in and new larger radiator even with the 25mm insulation it made a real difference when combined with the window etc.
If it was a brand new loft conversion for regulations there should have been 75mm between the rafters and 50mm below but the customer didnt want to go to the expense of bolting new timbers to the existing etc so they could only have 25mm insulation on a 75mm rafter as you need to maintain a 50mm airgap.
Hope this helps

Thanks for all the ideas it's appreciated, as it turns out yesterday scaffolding went up on the other side and it looks like they're also about to get a new roof. I'm going to have a word with the guys doing it today and see if they would be able to stick some insulation in whilst they are in the crawl space........ it's worth a try!

Thanks for all the ideas it's appreciated, as it turns out yesterday scaffolding went up on the other side and it looks like they're also about to get a new roof. I'm going to have a word with the guys doing it today and see if they would be able to stick some insulation in whilst they are in the crawl space........ it's worth a try!

Too right - offer cash, you know they'll take it!

Try getting in touch with council. They came round a few months ago offering free insulation.

For the window, you can get plastic film you stick round the edge then blow with a hair dryer to make it shrink tight. I think Wilkinsons sell it.

Hi,
Feel free to come down and give you a free advice.

For more information do not hestite to contact me on 07939936647.

Looking forward

John

Couple of ways of doing this:- Use Decolite Warmaline Veneer, available from B & Q and other places. Insulates walls. Could then use Blown Vinyl, another insulator, could then paint it all with Emulsion Paint with a special additive, developed by NASA which reduces heat loss by up to 25%. All of these measures can be achieved relatively cheaply, particularly if done by yourselves.
It may be possible, if the window is substantial and in good condition, to buy a Double Glazed unit only and have it fitted.
Hope this of help to you.

John
[Orchid Decorating Services
07846 988455 (if you need any more help)

QUOTE=portseahan;5526032]Having frozen every night for the last two winters I'm looking for suggestions on how best to insulate my attic bedroom without having to take the roof off.

The house is a 3 bed victorian terrace, I'm guessing the room was converted to a bedroom as it is now in the 50's, there is a large single glazed dormer which I'm going to try and find something to insulate the glass with, and I've got some blackout curtains which help a little to keep the cold out

The problem really is that between the bedroom and the roof is just a couple of plasterboard walls....... I know nextdoor had their roof re-done over the summer and they insulated at the time but I can't afford at the moment to take the roof off to lay insulation... Any ideas????

If all else fails I've gone out and got me an electric blanket.......[/QUOTE]

The solution is to take the plasterboard off, lay battened cut-to-size insulation between the joists then re-plasterboard the inner roof area. The snag is its a sod-off-a-job to do, and the time taken to do it [for a firm / firms staff] and the travel to the job + plus the SMALL profit involved on jobs like this [small jobs don't pay] means in practice no good firm 'is going to want to touch it. Due to programmes like Rogue Traders the public are becoming more WARY and more and more difficult to deal with, and most firms are ignoring jobs like this 'because the headaches involved in dealing with the public become too much of an headache for them to cope with, take it from me some clients don't even say thank you [to them] for a 'wonderful, low priced job when its been completed'. Quick anecdote: We did a marvellous job for someone, worked overtime because his daughters wedding was that weekend, he [the father] bought 4 men one bottle of Guinness between the 4 of us? When he phoned to say he had more work for us - he was told we were too busy to do it, and in effect to-go-to-hell. This is the other real side of the building trade, and rather interesting and sad to hear about.

wow, that's a ranty reply to a very simple question, as my brother is a tradesman I know what is good and bad workmanship and will always thank people appropriately if work is done well in my house.
With regards to the insulation, as it happens the council have come, installed hatches at either side of the room and insulated as much of the crawl space as they could get to, including attaching the insulation to the existing plasterboard walls, cost me nothing, they did a lovely job and I made them lots of tea, gave them biscuits and thanked them very sincerly for hopefully keeping me warm!

By the sounds of it the job done by the Council was "from an insulation point of view a complete waste of time". Please accept that modern day insulation is over-rated. Heat is impossible to control and contain in buildings and to make matters worse the manufacturers of insulation are conning the public something terrible -admittedly its better than now't and thats the best that can be said for it. In 1964 I could just about lift 4 bags of ONE INCH INSULATION, 25mm, today I can *easily* lift 6 x 1200mm bags of 8 inch insulation, 200mm, the reason being the modern day stuff lacks weight and substance, its all fluffed up *FRESH AIR? Long term If you intend living in the house for years then get the tiles of, lay wood boards or treated plywood over the roof joists, then add a layer of good roofing felt, then add new tiles. Lets face it your house is worth maybe £165000k+, so your protecting its re-sale value. What the council did assuming its a typical dormer roof dwelling was to leave too many un-insulated areas and cold spots.

By the sounds of it the job done by the Council was "from an insulation point of view a complete waste of time". Please accept that modern day insulation is over-rated. Heat is impossible to control and contain in buildings and to make matters worse the manufacturers of insulation are conning the public something terrible -admittedly its better than now't and thats the best that can be said for it. In 1964 I could just about lift 4 bags of ONE INCH INSULATION, 25mm, today I can *easily* lift 6 x 1200mm bags of 8 inch insulation, 200mm, the reason being the modern day stuff lacks weight and substance, its all fluffed up *FRESH AIR? Long term If you intend living in the house for years then get the tiles of, lay wood boards or treated plywood over the roof joists, then add a layer of good roofing felt, then add new tiles. Lets face it your house is worth maybe £165000k+, so your protecting its re-sale value. What the council did assuming its a typical dormer roof dwelling was to leave too many un-insulated areas and cold spots.


There is no wonder that sections of the building trade get a bad name and is over-regulated when so called tradesmen quote rubbish like this.

Another possibilty is to remove the plasterboard from the bedroom ceiling, insulate it then rebaord and skim the ceiling... although again not a cheap alternative.... but cheaper than taking the roof off!!!!!

Steve..

Best answer and solution from all the replys on here , if you want it doing correctly then do as steve says , i understand money may be tight , but this is one of those jobs where if your going to do it , do it correct and its not that big of a job steves option will be cheaper than a new roof , its more of the muck and up and down to the attick thats the problem which you pay your tradesman to do lol , i did one exactly the same about 4 month ago and the difference was massive and looked brill if you look at my picture links below you can see where we remove plasterboards and put kingspan between rafters ect ect , So save your pennys and do like steve says and you wont be dissapointed after wasting money other ways of insolating , kingspan is the best rooof insulator you can use so dont go for others , ps hope this helps and you get the job sorted.

If both sides of you have had a new roof its probable that yours will need doing in the near future.If I were you I would save your money until the time comes to re-roof and insulate [all the mess is on the outside]

Quote From Handy Pandy: There is no wonder that sections of the building trade get a bad name and is over-regulated when so called tradesmen quote rubbish like this. Handy Pandy, took exception to a remark that Insulation was over-rated, and inferior.

Having spent 50 years in the Insulation trade and looking at thousands of buildings from the point of view of "What they needed to be sealed and WARMPROOFED, my conclusions are that the job needs to be tackled at the erection and building stage, and tackling it *afterwards* can never really be successful. I insulated [meaning I was in charge of the insulation for] numerous hospitals, schools, morgues, nurses homes, librarys, farm buildings [pig houses] the occasional prison, and about 45 000 private homes, to be honest I was never 100% satisfied with any of the jobs done. Insulation is a stop-gap-measure. To tackle the job properly you need to insulate under the roof tiles and in the basement crawl-space, and by insulate I mean 'to insulate every spot which allows heat to escape'. Out of all the buildings to be insulated in my view DORMER ROOFS [which the OP as] are the least successful. So come on Handy tell us how it should be done - and how you'd complete the work?

Quote From Handy Pandy: There is no wonder that sections of the building trade get a bad name and is over-regulated when so called tradesmen quote rubbish like this. Handy Pandy, took exception to a remark that Insulation was over-rated, and inferior.

Having spent 50 years in the Insulation trade and looking at thousands of buildings from the point of view of "What they needed to be sealed and WARMPROOFED, my conclusions are that the job needs to be tackled at the erection and building stage, and tackling it *afterwards* can never really be successful. I insulated [meaning I was in charge of the insulation for] numerous hospitals, schools, morgues, nurses homes, librarys, farm buildings [pig houses] the occasional prison, and about 45 000 private homes, to be honest I was never 100% satisfied with any of the jobs done. Insulation is a stop-gap-measure. To tackle the job properly you need to insulate under the roof tiles and in the basement crawl-space, and by insulate I mean 'to insulate every spot which allows heat to escape'. Out of all the buildings to be insulated in my view DORMER ROOFS [which the OP as] are the least successful. So come on Handy tell us how it should be done - and how you'd complete the work?

Clearly, the work is best tackled at the building stage and obviously the regs are in place to ensure it is carried out correctly. However, we are trying to help someone here who lives in a property 100+ years old. I'm not going to get into an argument here about the correct procedures for carrying out this work, as its well documented. The items in particular in your post that I took exception to, were A) your deriding of modern products that will clearly have a higher R-value than the 1" gear that you were using in the 60's.B) your suggestion of lifting the roof, which not only seems a bit drastic, but does not solve the problem of the less than ideal 3" gap between the slates and the plaster which is prevalent in 1900ish terraces........and C) your suggestion that the top of the rafters should be boarded prior to re-slating, which is (in my opinion) not practical as it raises the level above the neighbouring terraces but also the condensation problems that would ensue, owing to the roof not being able to 'breathe' ( a problem that is now apparent in more modern properties that were felted with bituminas felts prior to the breathable membranes used today).

So, in short...for the ceiling.....I would recommend...Remove plasterboard / or laths, fatten up the rafters, Kingspan, foil bubble over rafter faces to help prevent cold bridging, board and skim.

I'm sorry, I was going to leave it at that....but....I've read "Not you again"'s post number 12, over and over. I can't let some of the comments pass without sticking my 4 penneth in.

Quote:"no good firm is going to want to touch it".........????

Quote: "Due to programmes like Rogue Traders the public are becoming more WARY"............and this is a bad thing ??:suspect:

Quote: "most firms are ignoring jobs like this because the headaches involved in dealing with the public become too much of an headache "......:rolleyes:

Quote: "take it from me some clients don't even say thank you for a wonderful, low priced job when its been completed".........the cheque is thanks enough for me mate....and I thank them for their business.

Quote: "he was told we were too busy to do it, and in effect to-go-to-hell".........over a bottle of Guinness ????:confused::confused: Your work obviously came more easily to you than it does to me:)

Haven't you realised that programmes like CRIMEWATCH and ROGUE TRADERS do more harm than good? Here's an example: Roof Insulation, water tank and cold water pipe insulation is completely free to just about everyone, So?: Now YOU go out knocking on peoples doors trying to sign householders up for it? with an hard days work you might find 100 people who really do need it, but only 3 or 4 will invite you into their homes so you can book their details. Yet it's free and installed by some highly reputable firms with long trading histories. Here's another one - just you watch people hiding their pin number when they pay for petrol or groceries, its comical to watch, and its all due to the power of TV, now try to imagine what its like offering to do a building job for this sort of person -they go batty at the idea. Whats happening Nationwide is thousands of householders are avoiding contact with there neighbours, are hiding in their homes, and are afraid to open the doors to strangers, and its all due to Crimewatch and Rogue Traders. Need I add that MILLIONS don'r watch these 2 programmes because they say that afterwards 'they cannot sleep at night', and add that they worry all day over what they've viewed on TV.

I can't believe me asking for a little advice 6 months ago has turned into such a rant. I've got my problem partially sorted, my bedroom is a little bit warmer (and my built in wardrobe has insulation now round it so I might not have to put on freezing cold clothes in the winter), if I choose to stay in my house a few more years I will get the roof re-done and insulated with kingspan right up to the apex........

[QUOTE=NotYouAgain;6196707]Haven't you realised that programmes like CRIMEWATCH and ROGUE TRADERS do more harm than good?"

Your obsession with TV programmes and obvious paranoia about it makes me question the quality of your workmanship and honesty. You appear to be unhappy about people wanting to assert themselves and make sure they are not conned in their own homes. Perhaps you've seen your own face on Crimewatch and can no longer rip off old ladies by 'clearing out their guttering' in case they recognise your face??

"Here's another one - just you watch people hiding their pin number when they pay for petrol or groceries, its comical to watch, and its all due to the power of TV"
Having previously worked in banking fraud I always try to sheild my pin, nothing to do with TV based paranoia, it's to do with protecting the little bit of money I have got. If someone clones your card or uses your card with your correct pin number it is unlikely you will get your money back easily from the bank as they will argue that it is your responsiblity to keep your pin number secret.


"Whats happening Nationwide is thousands of householders are avoiding contact with there neighbours, are hiding in their homes, and are afraid to open the doors to strangers, and its all due to Crimewatch and Rogue Traders."
Do you have any evidence for this statement? I've got a feeling it's slander. I've lived in my house nearly three years and know all my neighbours, am I the exception or the rule??

"Need I add that MILLIONS don'r watch these 2 programmes because they say that afterwards 'they cannot sleep at night', and add that they worry all day over what they've viewed on TV"
Again where's the evidence for this outlandish statement? As I've said the only person who is paranoid is you. TV is a choice, nobody has to watch anything they don't want to - I suggest you turn it off.

You've really shown yourself up - and possibly scuppered your chances of finding work though this forum. I certainly wouldn't employ anyone in my home who has such poor regard for the intelligence of the general public.

[Quote] I certainly would'nt employ anyone in my home who has such poor regard for the intelligence of the general public.

Reply: Don't you know that 25% of the so called general public can't read or write, that 1 in 4 children cannot speak English, that Market Research intervierwers are finding it almost impossible to find anyone others than DON'T KNOWS. Go into your neighbours homes you won't find a book or a daily newspaperr, look in their bins - all you'll find is empty beer, cider and wine bottles, this week our so called Prime Minister could not visit a local school because his advisers said 'It would make for poor TV', what he meant was that all 452 pupils were black, brown and foreign', this is tomorrows general public, getting back to Rogue Traders, the kick-back is hurting thousands of small, honest firms, if you don't believe me simply ask around.

this is just getting silly - you're obviously an angry individual with issues and I'm going to make this my last word on the matter. I'm cross you've turned a simple query into a forum for you pathetic ranting.

As I said in an earlier post, my brother is a tradesman who runs his own small business, he's also a rational human being and realises that consumers are changing and want to understand what he is charging them for and why. To accomodate this, he adapts his business to suit the people he is working for. If you're a small honest firm who's built a good reputation you really shouldn't have any worries about 'rouge traders'

Does it matter that tomorrows general public aren't all going to be white anglo saxon?? I certainly don't fit into that catagory but it doesn't stop me contributing positively (probably far more than you) to society.

What the hell are you doing rooting through your neighbours bins? Aside from it being barely legal, it's actually pathetic. You've proved to me that you can't judge intelligence on literacy skill, as you can obviously read and write, however you've shown yourself to be someone of minimium intelligence and maximum ignorance.