New Year’s Eve, loft insulating
Despite being New Year’s Eve I wanted to get this job finished so I got up early and pressed on.
First job was to supplement some of the joist supports and strengthen the joins between the original joists and the new stretcher joists. I though it a good idea to do this as I was just about to seal these in with new floorboarding and insulation.
Lots of hammering and screwing later and everything was triple secure.
I then removed the original landing board that I’d temporarily installed to land the boxes that were to go onto the floorboarded area.
I then fitted a new one on loft legs, insulating underneath with the original insulation and supplementing this with cross-hatched new insulation. I jig-sawed the edge to the loft entrance and made a very tidy little orifice.
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The rest of the day was spent sorting out the patchy original insulation. There were lots of bits with redundant bits of wood underneath that needed to be removed, there were bits near the chimneys that needed tidying as they were covered in sacks of brick dust and rubble. It was just a bit of a mess, I spent hours wandering up and down on two lumps of timber, stepping stoning from one to another to avoid falling through the ceiling.
You soon get the hang of working in attics, you move around very gingerly, you try to always have three points of contact and you test your footing before putting your weight on anything. Dust is always a nightmare and lighting is always too bright or too dark. The dust of the old insulation was terrible, the new stuff from B&Q was much better but still inclined to provoke a hacking cough if not adequately prepared for. It’s a bit like rock climbing in the dark, one false move and you can easily hurt oneself, luckily I got away with it.
Once I’d sorted out the original insulation I then rolled out the new insulation, this was installed perpendicular to the original insulation, cross-hatching it throughout the attic, easily over 200mm thick and lovely and cozy to keep the house nice and toasty underneath.
Working without a break I managed to get this all done by late afternoon and everything looking good I stopped for some well deserved booze and food to welcome in the new year.