No roofing felt/underlay?!

[antdad]

Evening gents

I visited an elderly relative today and ended up in her roof space to check the insulation was adequate and what we might be able to do with her drafty loft door. To my amazement even though the purlin insulation was adequate there was no felt under the tiles at all and it was freezing and as you'd expect incredibly drafty.

I'm a competent DIYer what should/can I do to remedy this before winter sets in, a re-roofing is out of the question. Thanks in advance.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

The loft is supposed to be drafty. millions of houses have no felt under the tiles. Ensure the insulation is up to scratch and and the hatch is well sealed and rest assured that a drafty loft is a good loft.

 

[antdad]

Theres circulation and then there's downright drafty, if it's such a good idea why hasn't the practice continued?

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

All well ventilated loft spaces should be downright drafty the more the better. felt is there as a back-up should a tile fail. It offers no other purpose apart from offering some weathering protection to a house during its construction.

Felt (traditional) is rarely used now as it has been replaced with breathable membranes that (you guessed it) allows air to flow through it.

The forum is rife with threads whereby people do not have enough and suffer from excessive condensation because their roofs are not well ventilated.

The insulation keeps the house warm.

 

[Chunkydoc]

I moved into a 1930s semi in January.
I was more than a little shocked to see no felt and promptly started to panic. Spoke to my neighbour who said his was the same so he'd had spray foam installed! Cue my research which ultimately led me here, and I realised it isn't such a big deal.

What was a more pressing issue was the lack of insulation, we had 4" at most and it was in a right state. So paid a friend to insulate the loft with copious rolls purchased cheaply from B&Q. Think it's 270mm stuff.

Anyhow, not a moment too soon as we had snow that night but everyone could feel the benefit.