5 Mistakes You should Be Careful Not to Make When Boarding Your Loft

Did you know that, as Dave’s DIY Tips explains, most heat loss from a home is through its roof? This underlines the importance of making sure your home’s loft is well-insulated. So, how can you make sure of this without compromising your ability to safely walk around the loft?

Simple: by installing boards over this insulation, or arranging a professional to do so on your behalf. However, here are just a few examples of easy-to-make mistakes you should endeavour to avoid if you are indeed intent on going down the loft boarding route.

Installing boarding to the same height as your joists

This is because, these days, it is recommended that you install loft insulation of about 270mm in thickness. Hence, the top of the installed insulation material will obviously end up higher than the top of 100mm joists up in the loft.

In an attempt to install loft boarding, squeezing the insulation material down to joist level would be unwise, given that doing so would compromise the insulation’s effectiveness.

Not investing in raised loft boarding

Though you might be tempted to affix some ‘raised’ timber to your loft’s joists in a bid to leave the insulation the room it needs to breathe, a better idea would be to opt for raised loft boarding.

This is so-called as it has been designed and built specifically to accommodate loft insulation. You wouldn’t even necessarily have to affix the boards yourself; many households in England and Wales could arrange for Instaloft to implement raised loft boarding in their residential properties.

Failing to wear suitable safety equipment

The most important of this gear will be a good-quality dust mask like FFP2 or even FFP3. Filters fitted into these masks can help to prevent you from inhaling dust and insulation fibres as you get busy with boarding your loft.

However, you should also remember to wear gloves as well as disposable overalls – or, more to the point, paper suits.

Neglecting to plan a loft boarding design in advance

Making this mistake could see you accidentally board over the likes of water pipes, gas pipes or cables – all examples of utilities to which you or a tradesperson could occasionally end up needing access at short notice.

Hence, you should carefully measure your loft space before creating a scale drawing of its shape and location, all the while heeding where those above-mentioned utilities are. This would all subsequently make it easier for you to order boards of the right size and dimensions for your loft.

Assuming too quickly that you can do it all yourself

The good news is that, according to Real Homes writer Ginevra Benedetti, boarding a loft “isn’t difficult if you have time, patience and good working DIY knowledge”. Nonetheless, you should still at least ask a friend or family member to assist you with the task.

If you feel daunted about attempting it at all, rest assured that the professional loft boarding installer you need could be just at the other end of a phone line.