Our plans to move house and undertake a significant green re-modeling of the new property have fallen through. So we are fixing our current abode ready for the winter!

We have decided to top up our loft insulation and also insulate under the two reception room suspended floors. The front reception room is above a cellar that is typically in the temperature range 8C-12C and has two grilled ventilation 'windows'. The positive side of this is that access from below is available, however the ceiling of the cellar is lath and plaster and damaged in some places and sagging in others. I suspect the easiest way to do this would be remove the lath and plaster, insert some mineral wool batts and replace the ceiling with a plaster board of some sort, perhaps a damp tolerant one? However I am not keen on mineral wool so can anyone suggest an alternative solution?

The second reception room also has a cellar beneath it with three ventilation bricks into it, however the access has been bricked up so access from beneath the floor is not an option. Also before this cellar was sealed they nailed a canvas under all of the floor presumably to try and reduce drafts (with only limited success I have to say). Rather than take up all the original floorboards is it possible to drill each one and blow some insulation in on top of the canvas?

In both of these situations I expect the insulation will come into contact with the walls at each end of the joists, so will damp be an issue and if so does that rule out most of the 'natural' insulations?

Do you have to replace the ceiling? Better move, from the point of view of ventilation for the timber, is to retain the insulation with netting - lightweight 'strawberry' netting will do. I hate mineral wool too. Alternatives are (relatively non-eco) plastic foam, or sheep's wool, recycled cotton or hemp.

Good luck.

Nick

Posted By: Nick ParsonsDo you have to replace the ceiling? Better move, from the point of view of ventilation for the timber, is to retain the insulation with netting - lightweight 'strawberry' netting will do. I hate mineral wool too. Alternatives are (relatively non-eco) plastic foam, or sheep's wool, recycled cotton or hemp.

Good luck.

Nick

No real reason to replace the ceiling, other than to allow it to be painted white to reflect light.

I like the idea of netting are there any risks to the insulation with damp air in that scenario?

Stuart

Shouldn't cause a prob, but pull the cables out so they are not wholly buried within the insulation, or be prepared to de-rate the circuit by up to 50%.

Hi Mike George, Yes, it is condensation and yes the cellar does suffer from water ingress. In fact after some, but not all, heavy rain storms it even pools on the floor!

OIMO

RE: The room you can't access.. my brother in law has exactly the same situation you described. Except where the wall had been bricked up to remove the access an original arch was still present. So we took out enough to gain access to the 2nd room, and found it had been used as a soil tip. Nice. And by soil tip I mean where the victorians used to dump their toilet waste, a combination of poo & ash from the fires according to my wife who is a social history curator. Anyway - we dug it all out (as someone would have been paid to originally - with a horse and cart outside!) Not too bad as it had completely decomposed in to what looked like sand. He then insulated from below, put up plaster to keep it all tidy and to stop tall people like me banging their heads on the beams. He was thinking of a cellar conversion, but the footings are very irregular and had a quote of £30,000 for underpinning.