I have a completely open loft (no wooden beams etc across the space) with concrete floor and no insulation or cladding (you can see the underside of the tiles etc...)
I'd like to use this space as an office but the temperature varies a lot with no insulation etc.
What's the cheapest way to sort this out. I have been told that cardboard makes a reasonable choice, but I guess it doesn't look good and is certainly a fire risk. I don't want to spend much money as the house isn't mine...
Would some insulation material and a load of plasterboard do the job?
Cheapest way is to do nothing, but won't achieve the desired result. You really need to spend /some/ money on insulating it.
By whom?!? That is a really stupid idea, for lots of reasons.
And isn't a good insulator, and will absorb moisture.
But you want a useable space, right?
Yes, that's what you need - at least 40mm of insulation board, then plasterboard. The ceapest insulation (polystyrene) can be had for around £6/sheet. Plasterboard costs a similar amount.
I'm in a similar situation (except for the fact that I do own the loft, it's not made of concrete, it is insulated and it does have wooden beams crossing the space) and was planning on just using the foil loft insulation roll stuff from ScrewFix @ £5.56 per square metre. I have no idea whether this is a good idea or not but I presume you can just board on top of it, although plasterboarding a loft you don't actually own would seem a bit excessive in my book! How would you actually get the boards up there (without cutting them) for a start?
A friend of mine did this in his house to make room for his office, trains and Scalectric. Wooden flloor, insulation + plaster board and a nice loft ladder. The one thing that ruined it which never did solve was damp and condensation, even in summer when room was too hot to use. No matter how much he tried, more insulation, a heater or two the walls/ceiling always got damp and went mouldy. Paperwork curled, cardboard storage boxes came unglued and went mouldy, trains and Scalectric stopped working due to oxidation from moisture. So in his opinion a bit a waste of time. Did have slight success after installing fans to draw air out at top of room to ridge vent, but only made the room cooler in summer and still had condensation on non sunny side.
Finally a building inspector friend of his had a look and noted the following:-
- Damp cause 1 was from moist air from house (due to breathing, cooking etc) rising to loft and condensing on cold walls/ceiling.
- Damp cause 2 (when loft closed) was interstitial damp (spelling ?) caused by temperature gradiant outside to inside. Never heard of this bfore being mentioned but is quite common.
Solution is surprise surprise, do it properly.....
- Proper stairway and door that closes to reduce house air rising into loft room.
- Proper insulation.
- Proper windows/extractor fan.
- Proper heating, extension of central heating to keep it warm in winter.
He ended up removing all the ceiling plaster board (+insulation) and reverting back to a nicely floored loft space that had no damp problems.
As it happens we have a proper staircase up there and a proper door already. There are three very old small looking 'porthole type' windows which do open, just. There's also quite a nice windows in the gable end (open and tilt type thing).
There doesn't seem to be any signs of damp anywhere but I've only been in the house for a month, and the loft is like an oven!
I'll check out the insulation board etc and see how much it would cost.
Maybe I'll just take over the spare room instead!!!
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