This weekend my Dad and I began the big job of putting insulation into our loft.
My Mum and Dad arrived fairly early in the morning to enable us to spend the whole day at it. My Dad and I set about getting ready, while my Mum was looking after Ellie while Gemma was at work.
The first job that we had to do was to install two fluorescent lights to provide more light rather than the one solitary light bulb that we had originally. This was a fairly easy job as there was already an electrical supply, so all we had to do was to run some extra cable and install a junction box.
Once the lights were installed, we began the task of moving most of the things that Gemma and I had accumulated over time to one side of the loft so that we could make a start with the insulation and also begin laying the floor boards.
Starting from one side of the loft, both me and my Dad were perched on boards laid across the rafters, so that we didn’t fall through the floor to the bedrooms below, we started laying the insulation between the rafters. Fibreglass insulation is not the best stuff to work with, it gets very itchy. Long sleeved tops and gloves highly recommended!
The most awkward part of the whole process was getting the insulation right into the point of the rafters, as there is not a lot of head room there, so you are having to work on your stomach. After successfully installing the insulation in between the rafters, we moved onto putting some of the floorboards down so that we would have a more solid base to work from.
We added some batons across the rafters to add some extra support to the floorboards, and to raise them slightly so that they were not squashing the insulation down too much. Once the first lot of batons were secured to the rafters we set about fixing the floorboards to the batons. This was by far the quickest part of the job so far. Once we had screwed all of the boards down across one width of the house, we decided that would be enough for one day, and conveniently, that’s what the rechargeable drills thought too!
The next day, my Mum and Dad arrived early again to carry on from where we had left off the previous evening.
We began by shifting most of the things around in the loft onto the new floorboards so that we could concentrate on putting the insulation and floorboards down in the central part of the loft. As can be seen in the photo, progress in this part was pretty good as there was more room to work in, and the boards went down reasonably easily. But then progress slowed down a little as we had to cut all the boards down so that they would fit between the rafters, but by mid afternoon we had completed most of the central part.
Then we got to the hatch area. This proved to be a little trickier. We found that we’d need to move the light switch and also build up a step to go over the water pipes that were located on one side of the hatch. As it was getting late we decided that we’d call it a day.
It was looking really good by the time we had finished for the day. Two thirds of the loft area is now boarded out so that we have more storage space, and hopefully, the house will be warmer too.
Phase 2 of the project will begin in a couple of weeks after Mum and Dad get back from a long weekend away for my Dad’s birthday.
Many thanks to my Dad for the hard work put in, and also to my Mum for keeping Ellie entertained over the weekend.
See you in 2 weeks.
Posted by DFW 
