Keeping Warm in Older Houses

First in an occasional series about how we are trying to make an older stone built house a more pleasant place to live and to reduce our carbon footprint. In the future we hope to be installing retro-fit wall insulation and an ultra modern wood fired heating system. So far we have insulated the loft - here's what we learned:

One of the problems with older houses, especially stone-built houses is their failure to conform to modern standards of efficiency. In a quest to improve this we are currently engaged in a number of improvements which should see us warm and cosy through next winter as well as costing us much less and reducing our carbon footprint considerably.
The first and easiest task took us to the roof space to improve the loft insulation. The old loft insulation was very threadbare and rather patchy, indeed, there were some parts of the loft with no cover at all. What existing insulation there was consisted of ancient rockwool type which was beginning to de-nature and was nowhere deeper than 50mm. This was covered with a layer of dust and vermin droppings.
The loose fibres and dust make a good quality respirator essential. Other essentials for putting new loft insulation in an old house: a pair of big, sharp scissors, overalls and illumination (I found a head torch to be the most useful). A few boards are also very useful and knee pads make the job much more comfortable. If you don’t like cobwebs in your hair, wear a hat!
Tip of the day – put a large dust sheet under your ladder – the amount of mess which falls from the hatch is remarkable!
When installing, apart from it being a pretty unpleasant job, there are very few pitfalls. The two main things to watch out for are the electrics and airflow.
To make sure your electrics stay safe all cables must be put on top of the insulation and that you cut around light fittings to allow any heat to escape. If the cable is too tight to get the roll of insulation under simply cut the roll at the cable and start rolling out again.
Airflow is critical in an older house so that you don’t get a build up of moisture. Make sure your insulation roll end does NOT but up to the roof. Always leave a gap to allow air from the walls to circulate. If you don’t, extreme cases can lead to dry rot.
It’s not complicated, even if it is hard on the knees and it makes an instant difference to your comfort levels and fuel bills. Insulate your loft today, there are a number of grant schemes running and some very good offers at the major DIY stores.