House Warming

Is it just me or has it suddenly become ridiculously cold? We already told you about some of our efforts to improve the heat retention in our house. We’ve insulated under our living room floor (you can read about it here) and we’ve filled the gap between the floorboards and skirting boards (read about it here) and also undertaken some general insulation upgrades (read about it here).

We considered having cavity wall insulation installed, but after having the house tested we discovered that our walls aren’t suitable for cavity wall insulation. The only place left that we can improve on is the loft. There is about 15 cm of mineral wool insulation already in the loft, so we only need to top up what’s already there.

These are the rolls of mineral wool insulation that we are using.

Installing loft insulation is really quick and easy to do the hardest thing for us was to get the insulation rolls through our tiny loft hatch.

Just remember to watch where you put your feet; you don’t want to end up in the room below! We used two boards spanning across the beams as a base to work from. You can sit or stand on one, then move the second forwards or backwards to move in the direction you want to go. We were really careful, but still managed to crack the bedroom ceiling below. Ups.

This is what our loft looks like after installing loft insulation.

It looks really fluffy and soft, but actually the mineral wool is really itchy. Although we wore gloves and a dust masks, the insulation still managed to get everywhere. Even a few showers later, we still felt itchy all over. Let’s just hope that the work is worth it and it helps us keep a bit warmer this winter!

If you can think of anything else we can do to improve our home insulation let us know!