More action on the cold windows

Used a spare roll of insulation to fill up the gap between the kitchen window and the back of the cupboards in front of it to ‘kill’ that block of cold air before it comes further into the room. It does feel warmer in there now, but think this window might be the first one to lok at in terms of draught-proofing and double or secondary glazing.

The loft is finished

Finally finished the insulation in the loft, having removed as much of the flooring as I could to roll additional insulation under that, and in some cases building a new floor on 50mm battens above the existing joists so that I could fit a proper depth of insulation under it. Also had to get as much insulation and draught-proofing as I could on the hatch into the loft.

Insulating the loft - part two

Due to the existence of the cupolas and the already floored areas, let alone the cold water tanks and the hard to reach eaves, there did not seem to be much point in building a layer deeper than 270mm. Who knows whether, given this situation, it was worth even doing what I did, but Homebase were selling SPACE insulation Blanket and Loft Roll at 2 for 1, so the total bill for the insulation only came to £49.33: although it took a fair few days to complete.

Time to tackle the loft

When we bought the house the loft had fibreglass blanket laid between the joists to an average depth of 170mm. Newspapers stuffed into odd corners appear to date this deed to the late 1970’s. When we came we floored about a third of the loft so we could use it for storage. This of course is now covered in a ton of stuff not easily moved. I reckoned that there were about 32 square metres which I could cover with either 100 or 150mm wide insulation, laid over or between the joists, to achieve a minimum of 270mm overall.

The newly insulated cupola

Here is the cupola from above.

Time to tackle the cupola

It’s lovely to have the light coming down the centre of the house but the cold draught that comes with it can almost slice your neck off. It measures 1.7m by 1.9m and would take a scaffold to reach it so fitting a Perspex sheet over it from beneath (as done to the one in the bathroom) was out of the question. I suppose getting new double-glazing units for each of the eight triangular panes might be the ideal solution but you can get around it in the loft space and covering it from above with plastic seemed worth trying initially. After testing samples of bubble wrap and sheet plastic I concluded that light grade small (4.2mm) bubble wrap was least intrusive, excluded least light, and should surely offer good insulating properties. Macfarlane Packaging offered the best prices on rolls of the right spec of the right width (1200 mm), even though it meant buying 100m in length (£43.68 including delivery). After a couple of shots at cutting and joining for the triangular sections the cupola now has a tailored ‘hat’, clipped to the edge of the glass panes, with the separate vent at the top of the cupola also insulated with two bubble-wrap covers. All covers easily removable if required, for instance for ventilation in summer.