Loft insulation dilemma

[Nikinokinoo]

Hi we have a Grade 2 listed property dating back to about 1700.

We’ve been doing it up and now realise it’s time to tackle the job we’ve been dreading…. the loft insulation.

The loft currently has horrible fibre glass insulation (the stuff that sticks to your face and throat) and I really want it professionally removed and to replace it with something more natural like treated sheep’s wool or wood wool boards.

My questions are:

1) Is the removal of the old fibre glass a service that the company installing new insulation would offer to do? I don’t fancy trying this ourselves!

2) Are there any grants for listed building insulation (that support the use of products like sheep’s wool)?

3) Has anyone found reasonably priced suppliers? The potential cost scares me as we have a large attic space!!!

4) Final question… am I mad to think about doing this as this is potentially our last winter in the house and, although the insulation is shot to pieces, it could potentially be a job for the incoming owners vs. us? I’m just sure that the lack of decent insulation will come up in a survey.

Thanks for your advice!

 

[Lacan07]

Hi we have a Grade 2 listed property dating back to about 1700.

We’ve been doing it up and now realise it’s time to tackle the job we’ve been dreading…. the loft insulation.

The loft currently has horrible fibre glass insulation (the stuff that sticks to your face and throat) and I really want it professionally removed and to replace it with something more natural like treated sheep’s wool or wood wool boards.

My questions are:

1) Is the removal of the old fibre glass a service that the company installing new insulation would offer to do? I don’t fancy trying this ourselves!

2) Are there any grants for listed building insulation (that support the use of products like sheep’s wool)?

3) Has anyone found reasonably priced suppliers? The potential cost scares me as we have a large attic space!!!

4) Final question… am I mad to think about doing this as this is potentially our last winter in the house and, although the insulation is shot to pieces, it could potentially be a job for the incoming owners vs. us? I’m just sure that the lack of decent insulation will come up in a survey.

Thanks for your advice!

Hello and welcome,

If it were me I would leave it for the next owner to sort out.

How much insulation is up there? Latest building regs are approx. 25cm - 30cm but few houses other than new builds can boast this. As long as the surveyor sees some insulation I doubt they'll make a big fuss about it and would that really deter the new owner from making the purchase? Most capable DIY'ers are able to insulate a loft.

Its good thing you are selling now, listed properties, and indeed all old houses, are rapidly becoming a dirty word amongst the Net Zero zealots. The Scottish parliament have given the go ahead for proposed changes to the EPC system whereby it will become illegal to sell a house below the 'C' threshold. Many think Westminster will soon follow.

 

[Nikinokinoo]

Wow that’s crazy and devastating to think of the impact on older properties. I can’t even imagine the impact that ruling will have.

And thank you re advice! I think we’ll see this winter out and patch the bare areas for now!

 

[Lacan07]

Wow that’s crazy and devastating to think of the impact on older properties. I can’t even imagine the impact that ruling will have.

And thank you re advice! I think we’ll see this winter out and patch the bare areas for now!

Yes, its pretty insane, 35% of housing stock in Scotland is currently under the 'C' threshold and will be rendered worthless. Some won't even be capable of achieving a 'C' I would imagine, I suspect they'll be ordered to invest in a heat pump or solar panels and waved on through. EPC's have always been random *******. I have friends on another forum who are climate mad and they rant and rave about uninsulated houses. None of them know anything about old houses, many think Grade II listed buildings should either be abandoned or destroyed!

There are others on here living with listed buildings, they may take a different view to me so stick around for any more suggestions / comments. They'll have more experience than me when it comes to surveyors attitudes to listed houses, although to be honest the consensus seems to be that most surveyors don't really know much about old houses either.

 

[malcolm]

I was forced into upgrading insulation to more modern standards by a change of use. A lot of fighting went on with building regs as they assume it's fine to dob and dab some waterproof insulated plasterboard on the walls for a 30 year payback. I assumed that would not be OK and the walls would get wet so I lowered external ground levels then used a breathable insulation for a 200 to 500 year payback. It's nonsense as it stands as there is no way that insulation will still be there in 500 years time so a net destruction of environment. In practice I don't heat the room to 24 degrees. In fact that room isn't heated at all.

The C rating changed recently. When I started 10 years ago I was aiming at a C. I made it but by the time I had finished that had become a D. Any insulation made for the idea of making selling the house legal would be best added just before the sale. And then you can just dot and dab to make it easier for the next owners to remove the insulation. The whole thing we are threatened with however well intentioned seems to be very poorly thought out.

For the original question the companies that install new insulation will remove the old insulation (but worth arranging they do that). I don't believe there are any grants available. If you are planning to sell then Rockwool might be worth considering. Definately get them to remove the glass stuff which will have settled, then 100mm between the joists and 200mm on top does make a real difference and the materials aren't too expensive. Make sure the roof ventilation isn't blocked by reducing the height of the insulation near any eaves vents and avoid any contact with the roof.

 

[Nikinokinoo]

Wow this is great advice thank you. I feel so sad that tehre is such a threat on beautiful old properties. It feels very special to live in one ( despite the leaks and creaks!)

 

[noj]

You do have the option to simply add another layer of insulation over what's already there for a warmer winter.

You could get spendy and use lovely sheep's wool or just use a much cheaper rockwool. It'll look good to a purchaser and suppress the itchy, dusty stuff. The cheap option is probably best if you're moving on...

 

[Nikinokinoo]

You do have the option to simply add another layer of insulation over what's already there for a warmer winter.

You could get spendy and use lovely sheep's wool or just use a much cheaper rockwool. It'll look good to a purchaser and suppress the itchy, dusty stuff. The cheap option is probably best if you're moving on...

That’s a great suggestion. I’ll look up Rockwool now

 

[fernicarry]

Yes, its pretty insane, 35% of housing stock in Scotland is currently under the 'C' threshold and will be rendered worthless. Some won't even be capable of achieving a 'C' I would imagine, I suspect they'll be ordered to invest in a heat pump or solar panels and waved on through. EPC's have always been random *******

I thought this was only a proposal by the SE not committed legislation? Believe its to be tied to a reform of the EPC system, which I agree is complete bollocks in its current form, but hard to see how you could make it meaningful without also making it a very involved and hence expensive exercise.

Part of the reform will make it even more difficult to achieve a C rating by penalising combustion heating systems (even if the fuel being combusted is eco in some sense such as green hydrogen) i.e. the ones that give the decent flow termperaturs required by drafty old properties. At the same time Sunak's announcement yesterday takes RoUK in the opposite direction. Difference of course is that the SNP needs the two Green seats to form a majority so are held hostage to their ideology.

For the OP, I removed all my disgusting old yellow glass fibre insulation myself. Not the most pleasant job by any means, but cover yourself up well and use decent PPE (branded face masks, not your left over paper anti-covid ones) and you'll survive it. Bag it and seal the bags in the loft as you go along to avoid spreading contamination.

The guys who do EPC surveys literally spend about 10 mins in the property in my experience. They will take your word for pretty much everything rather than checking themselves. Not that I would suggest you try to game the system...

 

[a twig]

Have no fear, Rishi is here!

As well as not needing to have 7 bins (?!) or be forced to share cars - apparently he will not force people to improve their insulation…

 

[fernicarry]

apparently he will not force people to improve their insulation

Caution, rant alert...

There are so many problems with all of it whichever direction you choose. Improve insulation, all for it, even do it myself from time to time, but like all forms of retrofitting it needs to be done with care and skill so as to be effective and so as not to introduce new problems e.g. blocking eaves ventilation, trapping interstitial condensation against floor joists, the sorts of stuff we care about on this forum. With the scale at which this needs to be done (literally millions of buildings) that's vanishingly unlikely to happen. You could take the view, lets just do it anyway, because this is an *emergency* and deal with the consequences later. Maybe.

You also need a feedback mechanism to measure whether or not you have actually improved the situation. Especially if you are going to tie the value of the property directly to its thermal performance. EPC's at the moment are based on a small number of parameters plugged into a very general model of building performance. My painstakingly carried out upgrades here and there just won't be reflected in that, but I know from my energy consumption versus 10 years ago when I moved in and the general comfort level that this building is performing better than it ever did. What thanks will I get? A kick in the teeth by making my property unsaleable unless I sign up for the relatively small number of 'approved' (and largely inappropriate) interventions that the EPC box-ticker can recognise, double glazing, HP etc.

Then we have the broken wholesale energy market that pegs electricity to the cost of the most expensive producer (surprise surprise thats currently gas), regardless of which cheaper sources are online (hence massive profits for energy companies). Just got my new tariff from Octopus and a unit of electricity will be costing me 3.9 times a unit of gas this winter. Lets assume I switch to a HP and it performs just as well as a gas boiler and actually hits its best case COP (somewhere between 3.0 and 4.0) then its quite unlikely that its running cost will be any lower. The reality is of course it won't do any of those things so I'll be worse off by every possible measure. Capital outlay, running cost, comfort level but this is the solution we are being herded towards.

The real issue though is what the rest of the world are doing. Unless the big economies follow a similar path to decarbonise as we are then we are completely wasting our time. The UK could take itself back to the stone age and it wouldn't even register as a proportion of global emissions. Forget all this nonsense that we have to be thought leaders and technological leaders and set an example. Will the leaders of China and India and North American have a sudden epiphany and decide to follow our lead? Course not, they have their own great unwashed masses snapping at their heels to worry about. Where do all the solar panels and electric car batteries and heat pumps and wind turbines come from? Not the UK so far as I can tell, we're still struggling to get a battery factory out of the ground. Glasgow City switched their fleet of buses to electric recently. Whats written on the back of the new buses? BYD of course, some technical leadership that is...

Do nothing? Probably not a great strategy either, but at the moment the available solutions just aren't appropriate. I don't wish to appear that I agree with Rishi and his cohort of distasteful misfits but surprisingly he seems to have called this one correctly, albeit almost certainly for the wrong reasons (votes). The strategy needs a complete rethink IMO.

The whole thing we are threatened with however well intentioned seems to be very poorly thought out.

Indeed.

 

[malcolm]

Quite. Forum members will get the worst of it too. The requirement to insulate my walls was based on payback on the difference in price between insulated plasterboard and normal plasterboard. That was building regs rules a few years ago. Even when more sophisticated models (like the one I had to pay for) are used for each house there remains the issue that interventions aimed at modern houses will rarely be appropriate for old houses. Just the same as we have to keep reversing modern damp treatments that made our buildings wet (and cold).

The knowledge is not out there. My sister called the other day because some damp or insulation company said her 150 year old loft was damp and told her the roof would have to be spray foam insulated to fix it! I told her she was being scammed.

I've found this forum fabulous and the knowledge on here has directed my own work. My house was cold and damp and is now much warmer and almost free from damp. However our knowledge and information is not mainstream and I have a real fear that will make it 'misinformation' come the top down push to do make people do certain things rather than try to achieve some outcome.

I appealed on Facebook for people to oppose the Online Safety Bill. It's through now and my reading is a spray foam insulation company could claim this forum causes them harm in suggesting that it's not a great system for old roofs. With the enthusiasm for environmental stuff I think they would win. We will be found to have caused them harm if we advise forum members not to go ahead with spray foam.. If the planet does need saving I think we should be going about it in a more sustainable way.

Seems to me forcing people to do things has become more important than achieving any objectives. For example equality of opportunity will eventually achieve objectives and equality of results will not. But that describes the Energy Bill.

Apologies to the opening poster. This thread is getting full of rants. I think we are all a bit sensitive at the moment to all the madness.

As an attempt to get loosely back towards topic I would get rid of the fibreglass when you put new insulation in whichever option you choose. Firbreglass settles badly, fills the air with little particles you can breath in, and I suspect it will become treated as more hazardous in the future and become expensive to remove. Asbestos was fine up until they found something better. Rockwool isn't great but a lot better. Ebay is worth a look for sourcing it. There are sellers with trade accounts with the suppliers who pass on half of their huge discount. Sheep wool is much better but at least 4 times the price and the cost does add up over the area of a ceiling.

 

[Stevers]

Our top floor does get a bit warm on a hot day, so I'm contemplating 50mm rockwall acoustic/insulation slabs 400mm wide to top up what was nominally 100mm fibreglass that has settled. That will take the insulation to just above the 5" joists, but I'll still be able to see them to walk on, with the option to conveniently add further insulation later. All of the wiring up there is lighting circuits (pendant LED bulbs) or aerial cables. Only one of the rooms on the top floor is heated to 20C so heat retention less of a priority for me, but it will help that aspect too.

 

[masochists-r-us]

Before people go ruining their Listed Buildings to reach an unachievable standard, for what in our case is a 400 year old building, be aware that so many of our MPs live in them too. Remember the old adage, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. We’re doing everything we practicably can to improve our situation, but we are not going to dig up our solid floors or dry line all of our internal walls, reducing our room sizes to tick a C box which will change over time. So, we’re up for secondary glazing, Kingspan or the like between and on top of the rafters, Rockwool or like between the joists and draughtproofing external doors.
We also run our heating as per expert recommendations i.e. 3 x independently controlled zones ( 1 per floor), TRVs on all rads, max boiler temp 60 degrees, in line cleaner to minimise sludge in the system and system always on, but run at a low temp.
When we first moved in, we had eco dreams of installing a ground source heat pump and underfloor heating, but specialists told us that the losses in our building are far too great to ever make this an effective or practical solution for us.
Proceed with caution is the name of the game, in our view.

 

[Toby Newell]

Lol. Most rich conservative types live in large period properties, they will never do anything that hurts themselves.

There is enough stupidity in the new build part L regs to go around for everyone. I am sure affluent period home owners will be just fine.

Just as I have to pay £2,000 extra a year to drive a vehicle that is used to restore and recycle wood when the client I visit can use several wood burners that produce multiples of what comes out of my tail pipe for free.