Insulating attic rooms

[toomuchcarrotcake]

Complete novice here, so please be gentle with me!

Our Victorian terrace has two attic rooms. There's currently no insulation in the roof, so they're freezing in winter, and sweltering in summer. What can we do about it, and roughly how much would it cost to fix?

As I see it, you either take the roof tiles off and put in insulation, or take the ceilings down from the inside. We need scaffolding anyway to fix chimneys and gutters, so doing this from the outside might be better? And less messy!

Or do we just cover up the existing ceiling with insulation; sounds less disruptive, but I'm guessing we would lose a lot of space because of the sloping roof?

Have a look at the link. www.government-grants.co.uk/room-in-roof-insulation-grants.shtml

Ours is an attic room so what they do is go into the eaves then they have a system to push the insultion panels up between the ceiling and the roof, google room in roof scheme you should find someone near you who does it.

Has the house been re-roofed yet?

It was re-roofed about 10 years ago by previous owners. We assumed that they would have insulated it properly! However we looked into roof space by taking off ceiling light fitting, and discovered it was completely bare.

I am rather suspicious of a website which calls itself government-grants but is not a government website, and does not provide any information, it just harvests your name, address and phone number.

It says it passes (sells?) your details to other companies.
"We do not have any affiliation with any government agency. www.Government-Grants.co.uk attracts traffic from those members of the public seeking information about grants and other funding initiatives and thereafter generates enquiries. These enquiries are then distributed to reputable, accredited companies"

especially when they quote "Registered in England, No. 07478291"

which Companies House tells me was
"ABINGLEE LIMITED

07478291 - Dissolved on 4 November 2014
99, Canterbury Road, Whitstable, Kent, CT5 4HG"

If it was re-roofed recently, I would hope there is a breathing membrane under the new tiles and it doesn't leak.

If the ceiling is the old Victorian one, it will be lime plaster on laths, and liable to fall down as the nails will be rusty. I would pull it down and put a layer of insulation between the rafters (with an air gap above) and another layer of Celotex or Kingspan pinned to the rafters, and new plasterboard over that. You can also get a bonded insulating slab with a plasterboard surface. To insulate to Building Regulations you will have to follow a construction specification, you can probably download it from one of the makers websites.

Enquire of your local council if grants are available, and also try BG and other "big six" energy suppliers who will often provide free or subsidised insulation even if you are not their customer (they have a budget for their "Green Obligation"). Beware of providing your name and address to companies who may "register" you as their customer to prevent any other supplier being able to act.

this one is a genuine government site (note the "gov.uk" address)

www.gov.uk/energy-grants-calculator

My roof grant was sorted out by my service provider Npower and it's happening in 2 weeks!!

We only insulated the floor in the attic space above the attic rooms, if that makes sense - it was an attic with no actual access, but we cut a hole, fitted a proper ladder and now use it for storage.

We insulated between the joists before flooring it out.

The walls are still empty though, and short of removing the plaster and re-lining it all, I'm not sure there's much we can do - unless the stuff they inject might do it?

Make sure the windows are well draught proofed, and so on.