Insulating Our Loft

Ever wondered how to insulate your loft to the recommended depth and yet still use it for storage? Well, this is how we're tackling that problem at the moment:

We need the loft for storage, so the whole area needs boarding over. But, if we boarded over the current floor joists, it wouldn't allow for the recommended depth of insulation of 270mm (approx 11") - The joists are only 100mm (4") deep which would leave us 170mm short.

We could put down more lengths of wood on top of the joists at right-angles, allowing us to put down 1 layer of insulation between the joists, then another, at right-angles, between the new timbers, and put boards on top. However, building up the floor another 170mm (7") would reduce the amount of useful storage space in our loft too much (Thanks to things like the slope of the roof etc).

So we've decided to raise the floor by about 75mm, giving us room for 175mm of insulation, and put another 100mm of insulation between the roof joists.


Work is currently underway. We hope to be cutting those gas bills very soon....

P.S. The big bonus is that, due to special deals at the DIY stores, we got enough insulation material to do our whole loft for only £90.