Loft advice please

[fredex]

Hi there,

We have been in our property for about 7 months and our attention has turned to the loft space.
It's an early 20th century detached house, with lath and plaster walls & ceilings. The loft insulation is an old type that I've seen in other properties of this age, some kind of loose fluffy material with small, torn pieces of newsprint in.

I've just fitted some flourescent lighting, and with the extra light I counted ten wasps nests (five smaller than a cricket ball, and the rest football size or larger). I _think_ that they're all historic - several of the large ones have been smashed and have dead wasps around them - but would rather not take any chances with them. The pest control people I've spoken to say that they can treat the nests but not remove them. I've sprayed them all with Rapid wasp killer and there was no activity.

I'd like a little bit of advice from people more experienced on my plan, which is to:

• carefully break apart and respray the intact nests
• clean up the broken parts and pull up the old insulation, bag it and take to tip
• replace with modern insulation - the loft is much warmer than the rest of the house at the moment so hopefully this will help hold more heat in the house itself
• fit loft boarding on top

I've been looking at various options for insulation, including board types, some loftboarding with polystyrene insulation fitted at the bottom and a couple of different glass-wool based options. Does anyone have any advice on the best types? I've worked with glass-wool based insulation before, so I'm aware of how much of a pain it is to handle.....

I am also assuming that replacing the insulation would make a big improvement to the energy efficiency of the house. If not, then I figure there's no point replacing it and I'll go straight to boarding.

Thanks a lot for your help

Andy
P.S., I've seen some deals on Roofing Superstore, anyone ever used them?