Hi all,
I moved into my current house a few months ago and its has some issues with cold temperature and sound transmission. It's a 1970's semi detached Dorma, so the roof slopes to the level of the ground floor ceilings and the first floor covers a smaller area than the ground floor.
Because of an "interesting" DIY job the previous owner did on the central heating, I've had a plumber round to re-run the pipework properly and on lifting the floorboards upstairs found that there is no insulation between the joists at all, and there is a cool draft coming in. The joists extend out into the sloping roof, which I understand is supposed to be ventilated, but I doubt it's helping out with heat retention! It seems to me that this is just providing an air corridor between the floors running from the front to back of the property that can carry away any rising heat from the ground floor.
I'm thinking I can get some insulation down between the joists before fixing the floor back down to help with the temperature loss and hopefully provide better acoustic insulation. The gaps between the joists are 400mm wide and 170mm deep, and my current plan is to slide some rigid insulation out into the roofspace, completely block the gap under the dorma wall with mineral wool or similar to stop the drafts, then lay some acoustic insulation along the length of the room itself, leaving space for pipework and electric cables above the insulation. My main concern is can I completely block off the airflow under the floor without causing any condensation issues? Do I need to put in any sort of damp proof membrane anywhere, or is just the insulation ok?
I moved into my current house a few months ago and its has some issues with cold temperature and sound transmission. It's a 1970's semi detached Dorma, so the roof slopes to the level of the ground floor ceilings and the first floor covers a smaller area than the ground floor.
Because of an "interesting" DIY job the previous owner did on the central heating, I've had a plumber round to re-run the pipework properly and on lifting the floorboards upstairs found that there is no insulation between the joists at all, and there is a cool draft coming in. The joists extend out into the sloping roof, which I understand is supposed to be ventilated, but I doubt it's helping out with heat retention! It seems to me that this is just providing an air corridor between the floors running from the front to back of the property that can carry away any rising heat from the ground floor.
I'm thinking I can get some insulation down between the joists before fixing the floor back down to help with the temperature loss and hopefully provide better acoustic insulation. The gaps between the joists are 400mm wide and 170mm deep, and my current plan is to slide some rigid insulation out into the roofspace, completely block the gap under the dorma wall with mineral wool or similar to stop the drafts, then lay some acoustic insulation along the length of the room itself, leaving space for pipework and electric cables above the insulation. My main concern is can I completely block off the airflow under the floor without causing any condensation issues? Do I need to put in any sort of damp proof membrane anywhere, or is just the insulation ok?
