help with insulation problem

manus30

hello,
i have a detached 2 story house and have been improving the insulation over the last few months. so far i have insulated the attic and replaced the windows, and am in the process of pumping bead into the cavity walls in a few weeks.
i just noticed the other day that there is a "mini attic" between the ground and top floor ie. the ground floor area is larger than the top floor if you know what i mean. i am paranoid about heat escaping through this.
its hard to explain but if you look at the front of the house there are a few rows of tiles between the ground floor and upstairs, which joins the larger ground floor to the smaller upstairs. this is where the "mini attic" is
I have spoke to neighbours with the same style house, and this "mini attic" is notorious for losing heat apparently, and can only be accessed by removing the tiles.
anyone come accross this before? could i just remove tiiles and cut through the felt, then when i get the silver bead lads around i could get them to blow in some bead into this area? is it bad practise to cut the felt?
im a bit green in this area so advice greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.

getmoving

It sounds like you're thinking of insulating a floor in between you ground floor and the rooms above it. Why? If the attic and walls are insulated then the heat will be kept within the house. These should be your priority

manus30

getmoving wrote: »

It sounds like you're thinking of insulating a floor in between you ground floor and the rooms above it. Why? If the attic and walls are insulated then the heat will be kept within the house. These should be your priority

thanks for your reply, but please read the post again. the top floor is smaller than the ground floor. therefore, even if all of the attic was insulated, there is still a space between the ground and top floor that is not insulated because of the size diffrence between floors..

Stratocaster

manus30 wrote: »

hello,
i have a detached 2 story house and have been improving the insulation over the last few months. so far i have insulated the attic and replaced the windows, and am in the process of pumping bead into the cavity walls in a few weeks.
i just noticed the other day that there is a "mini attic" between the ground and top floor ie. the ground floor area is larger than the top floor if you know what i mean. i am paranoid about heat escaping through this.
its hard to explain but if you look at the front of the house there are a few rows of tiles between the ground floor and upstairs, which joins the larger ground floor to the smaller upstairs. this is where the "mini attic" is
I have spoke to neighbours with the same style house, and this "mini attic" is notorious for losing heat apparently, and can only be accessed by removing the tiles.
anyone come accross this before? could i just remove tiiles and cut through the felt, then when i get the silver bead lads around i could get them to blow in some bead into this area? is it bad practise to cut the felt?
im a bit green in this area so advice greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.

Its hard to tell without being there, I am not sure about lifting tiles and felt and blowing in the beads, those beads are covered in a glue so it sounds difficult, sounds like a lot of work to me.

Maybe you could slab the ceilings below the un accessible attic space with insulated plasterboard and re plaster. Depending on your house this type of job could be less costly and time consuming.

Joey the lips

Why doesnt you just insulate both surface! The ceiling to prevent heat loss and the floor to prevent cold rising! Just leave a little space in the floor for air to circulate


It sounds like air needs to circulate in the space again without seeing!

manus30

if i went the re-slabbing route i would have to slab every room in the whole house, and also take down the cornice/moulding etc. there is no need to insulate the top surface as you say because that is not exposed, and it would involve covering the timber floors upstairs, understand? there is a specialist in dungarvan getting back to me tomorrow so i will see then

porte

I think i know what your saying i just built my own bunglow/loft conversion and where the space upstairs i smaller than downstairs there is 3 foot space not insulated on the wallplate sides of the house. to be honest this does not cause any concern as in my opinion i think there should be plenty of air circulating space to stop any and i mean the smallest amount of moister turning to mould i only insulated up and across celling height and down the d walls.
I also pumped my cavitys with platinum bead best desicion i ever made my sister inlaw next door went with kingspan aeroboard and unless its put in how it shoud be (sloppy blocklayers) you will get problems such as damp,she found out the hard way.
Anyway best of luck.
Also if you look at your sofit you will see air vents.

Joey the lips

manus30 wrote: »

if i went the re-slabbing route i would have to slab every room in the whole house, and also take down the cornice/moulding etc. there is no need to insulate the top surface as you say because that is not exposed, and it would involve covering the timber floors upstairs, understand? there is a specialist in dungarvan getting back to me tomorrow so i will see then

I actually ment insulation on the floor from underneath. But my bat my apologies. Its hard to say what to do without seeing as you can understand.

Best of luck the difference propper insulation makes over more heat!

Cherry Picker

Hi there,
I am in the Insulation business, and under no circumstances let the company doing the cavity wall insulation pump bead into this mini attic. If there is electrical cables in this space then any aeroboard/or bead should not come into contact with the cables. There is a chemical reaction between the cables and the product and it would create a fire hazard. As has been suggested already to you, the only way to go about this is to use an insulated slab on the ceilings below.
Best of Luck and glad to see you're aware of how effective insulation is.

manus30

thanks for advice cherry picker