Hi All,
I've been looking in my loft and found the roof has no felt between the rafters and tiles. Instead there is a very old thin black material nailed to the inside of the rafters. It's so old that it's crumbling and failing down creating lots of dust.
What modern material should I replace this with?
Do I need to have all the tiles removes and a proper felt fitted?
Thanks in advance, Martin.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it...plenty of 1930s houses didn't have sarking....just make sure there aren't any tiles slipped that really let in water.
Thanks for the reply. Trouble is the wife wants me to floor the loft so she can store some stuff up there and I want to use it as a comms room (i.e. the place where all the CAT5 terminates / interconnects) therefore we really need to solve the dust problem.
Staple Tvek against the rafters. This allows water vapour out and prevents rain, and dust, from entering the other way via the mass of gaps aroud all the tiles.
If you want to keep the place warm, pin Actis radiant barrier over the rafters. If you want t finished, pin 25mm batons over the Actis on the rafters running with the rafters. On top of this install plaster board.
Actis comes in a roll, is about £10 squ metre and is the eqiv of 200mm Rockwool insulation. It also keeps heat out in summer too. It is also a vapour barrier.
For forty years we've owned this house, bought new in 1937 by my aunt. At that time my father back-pointed the tiles from inside the roof space. Very many of the other houses on this estate are having to have new roofs or have sliding, broken or missing tiles, ours is sound and should see us out.
When I wanted to lay a floor up there to store things there was a problem of gritty dust. We sucked the loose stuff out with a vacuum cleaner then fixed rockwool next to the tiles and clad it all with thin plywood. It stopped the dust and helped the insulation, it also meant that there was a good surface for paint white which made things easier to see up there.
Mary
Is there ventilation in the loft? If not, that Rockwood may be saturated with condensation.
True enough, but an unlined roof is very dirty.
Does it need to look pretty or just keep the dust at bay?
Just for dust control I'd strip out all the olds stuff (could it be ordinary cotton sheeting blackened with muck) clean up, lay the required flooring then staple polythene sheet to the underside of the rafters. Leaving a few inches gap at the top and bottom for ventilation of the roof space. Use clear poly so you can spot any leaks or excessive condensation in the gap betweem sheeting and tiles.
(Martin) wrote
I asked a similar question a while ago on here. Do a google groups search on "Sarking Felt"
Cheers
Paul.
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