Insulating ceilings?!?!

[helen shingfield]

Can anyone help? We have recently moved into a pre-1836 cottage and have been taking into account all the good points and items on these forums. Our place was built into a hillside and as such our living room's rear wall is therefore below ground level and we find that if we don't have our wood burner on, our living room acts like a cellar and is not the warmest! Would it be worth us insulating the ceiling void between our living room and the bedroom above, and if so, what with? The ceiling is plasterboard through modern timber joists to t&g chipboard floor above, as the upstairs of the cottage was renovated in the 1990s.

 

[biffvernon]

Would it be worth us insulating the ceiling void between our living room and the bedroom above, and if so, what with?

That's was a bold question.
I guess it depends how you like to use your house. If you insulate the ceiling between downstairs and bedroom you'll have a warmer downstairs but a colder bedroom. I'd rather add insulation to the loft and maybe dryline and insulate that back wall to keep the whole house warmer. Some of those recycled, forest consuming herdwicks, famous on another thread, might do the trick.

 

[Nemesis]

Well - only some parts of the Herdwick may be suitable for the purpose of insulation... recycled innards may be not quite what is required.

I wonder how much of a forest ever grew on the top of Wrynose and Hardknott? I'm not old enough to recall it ever being forest there, although I admit my memory may be faulty.

http://www.rural-roads.co.uk/lakes/wrynose.shtml

 

[Moo]

I have a dim memory of a a series on tv that demonstrated how, left to itself, plant life arranged itself according to altitude. Images of plants just below the alpine snow-line; then one sort of tree; then, lower down, other sorts of tree; and so on.
It was beautifully shot, and absolutely fascinating, and to my shame that's all I can remember.

 

[Nemesis]

And as I said in another thread: there is not a lot of evidence to show trees ever grew above a certain altitude in the Lake District. That however is to a certain extent a man-made landscape, walls, farms and all, and many love it just the way it is.

 

[helen shingfield]

The bedroom above gets warm enough due to the central heating so we would rather have heat loss in the bedroom above, offset against heat gain in the living room! What I was trying to get at was that whether insulating the floor void would lead to any ventilation problems and had anyone tried it??!!

 

[biffvernon]

Can't see how you would get a ventilation problem, but insulating the roof keeps the bedroom warmer allowing you to turn down the radiator and leaving more heat to warm the downstairs. Insulating the roof should be your first job.