I have recently cleaned out, insulated and boarded the loft. I searched the archive and picked up some useful stuff. In exchange, I'd like to share what I have learnt about the cleaning...and my pain.
Top tips:
- When buying a house, specifically mention to the vendor that "vacant possession" means that he cannot leave 30 year old beds, old drawers, six doors and an old broken glass door in the loft.
- If a loft has not been cleaned out for 130 years, you may need to set aside more time than you were expecting...
- If you can get someone else to do it, do.
- If you can do it in cold weather, do. It's sweaty enough in all the gear anyway, but with hot sun on the roof...
The following is based on the loft being as horrible as ours - ie 20 full buckets of dust from the loft of a 2 bed terrace
Procedure:
- You need: - Tyvek suits - dust masks - old wellies - knee pads - rubber gloves - goggles - dustpan and brush - a suitable vacuum cleaner. Old loft dust has a lot of soot in it and this will kill domestic hoovers. I got a Dyson from the tip and it didn't work. Following recommendations on this group (see archive), I bought a Wickes wet or dry cleaner (a rebadged version of the Earlex) and got the large cellulose filter from Earlex. When you assemble it, don't fit the castors or it's a pain in the loft when working on crawl boards. You'll need to buy a little brush attachment. - dust sheets for the room where the hatch is and for under the ladder. - two (or more) buckets double-lined with bin bags - lots of bin bags - inspection lamp and spare bulbs for when you drop the inspection lamp - boards to allow you to work on the rafters - eg six loft flooring panels
Everything you take into an old loft to do this job will get very dirty very quickly and will take a lot of cleaning up. If you can use stuff you can throw away after, good. If you need a radio, put it in a clear poly bag.
- Go to loo, bid farewell to family, stroke cat, put on suit/mask/ gloves/goggles and climb up into the loft. I dispensed with the goggles after I'd removed the old insulation, but up to you.
- Seal the loft hatch opening with something - eg clear polythene and gaffer tape. You'll be creating dust and you don't want it coming down into the house. If you seal it with something opaque, you will not be able to see anything when you drop and break the inspection lamp while you are on crawler boards with your head in the eaves.
Note: I rolled up, bagged and took to the tip the old insulation at this point.
- Sweep off the purlins, all other roof timbers and the walls to remove dust and loose material from these. Don't do this when you have cleaned the floor of the loft (bitter experience speaking).
- Starting in a corner, sweep up as much of the dust between two rafters as you can and repeat the process with the other rafters, emptying the dustpan into the buckets. Do all the sweeping before you use the vacuum as sweeping creates dust and you'll have to repeat the vacuuming (bitter experience speaking). When your buckets are full, tie both bags and carry them out of the house in the buckets. You could, I suppose, just carry the bags out, but if one splits, you'll be living in the shed for a bit. Likewise, don't forget to take your boots off.
- Vacuum the purlins, all other roof timbers and the walls.
Tip: when suction drops, turn off the cleaner, hold it on your leg at
45 degrees and give it a few sharp whacks, turn it a quarter turn and repeat till you come full circle. What you are doing is shaking the accumulated dust off the filter into the tub. If this ceases to work, open the cleaner and brush the dust off the filter into the tub and then empty thetub into the bucket. Tapping the metal bottom of the filter will also take off a lot of dust.
- Vacuum the floor. Order is: top of rafter, sides of rafter, then lath by lath.
- When you've finished, don't step back and admire your work. If you've got this far without putting a foot through the ceiling, it'd be a shame.
This has got to be one of the most unpleasant jobs I have done.
David