Forum Topic

Very hot loft question

Hi, I'm hoping someone out there can answer this for me. Our house has a loft conversion which was done before we bought. Its a nice big room but it gets unbearably hot in weather like this, particularly at night. Does anyone know why? I'm guessing it has something to do with insulation, or lack of? but have no idea what the solution is, or indeed if there is one. Can anyone help please? Thank you.

Milena Vincic ● 5629d9 Comments

air conditioning should do the trick unless you want to redo it with proper materials and insulation

Veki Pavlova ● 5629d

heat rises!!!!!!!! open the widow and a door or window downstair and try for a through draught if you haven't got a widow in it you are in trouble! I suggest you get one

Jane Willingale ● 5629d

Maybe I should have explained in my original post that we have survived the furnace thus far by opening windows, oh and using a fan!!!!!! but I thought I'd be credited with a modicum of common sense. Obviously heat rises, but the ground and first floors of the house are cool. There are 4 windows upstairs, 2 velux and 2 sash, as well as one more out in the hallway. However it is not always possible to keep windows open all night due to wind/rain/noise etc. My cousin renovated a house and extended up into the loft and I remember going to see it one scorching summers day and despite everything being closed the room was completely cool. When I commented on this he said it was down to the insulation, but I never got the chance to question him further as he passed away very suddenly. So every summer i vow to do some research into getting the problem sorted out properly and getting advice from a loft insulation company but never quite got round to it. The good people of this forum are usually a font of information and advice so I thought I'd try my luck and get some ideas here first. Veki thanks, I may have to go down the aircon route, as I really dont want to have to redo the whole loft, I was hoping there may be a way to add insulation via foam or something? If anyone has any experience of this, or can recommend a company for some advice I'd appreciate it.

Milena Vincic ● 5629d

Ours is the same - the loft room is warm almost whatever and scorching in summer...in spite of fairly good ventilation. We use a fan etc but have never got round to air conditioning.

Sara Nathan ● 5629d

I think it may very well have something to do with insulation. My loft (which isn't a conversion, just an ordinary bare loft space) became noticeably _cooler_ when I laid a good 12" of fibreglass wool across the floor. I think your loft room is getting the ultimate benefit of all the heat that's going into the rest of the house. There's also the possibility that the sun beating down on the roof is warming the room from above. How easy would it be to get under the floor and have a look, and maybe lay some insulation? It's dirt cheap to buy (it's subsidised as an energy saving measure) I also have some insulation laid between the beams that support the roof. The chap I bought the place from put that in as he'd intended to create a loft room but never got around to it. The blasted squirrels have chewed a lot of that away but there's about half left and I suspect it helps keep the heat in the roof tiles out.Having said that I have a feeling that getting access to the inside of the roof itself would be rather destructive.

Roy Gillett ● 5628d

Hi answer is very simple, the is no insulation or is very poor, someone who done conversion was a cowboy builder and he did not use good insulation or any - maybe trying to cut cost on materials witch is not always good. One solution is to put new insulation witch is not one day project but worth doing it, you must take plasterboards down and fix new insulation boards like kingspan or celotex 100mm thick. If you want good local builder worth recommendation  give Adam a call 078 8888 7821 he`s extraordinary polish bloke and we are always very pleased with he`s work.  Guy.

Guy Davies ● 5628d

I have the same problem with my loft conversion (Loft Rooms c.1998, before we bought the house) and I'm convinced it's poor insulation of the roof.  It was probably a compromise between putting in adequate insulation and getting an adequate room height within the council's extension guidelines.

Richard Jennings ● 5627d

My cooker is insulated with vermiculite, lightweight non-flammable pea size granules that could be poured through a small hole to add insulation.

Chris Bell ● 5624d

Ours gets hot but not too hot I suppose.  We keep all the velux blackout blinds down on a very hot day and that helps enormously.  In our kitchen extension we have sensors on the velux windows so when it rains, the close.  I think they may have a timer on them too.  I wish we'd had sensor velux put in the loft too in hindsight.  That way the windows could be open either on a timer and/or sensor for rain.  It may pay you to replace yours?  They were around £600 each about 4 years ago.

Angela White ● 5614d