{"id":1787,"date":"2022-10-05T00:53:30","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T23:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/?page_id=1787"},"modified":"2025-07-30T08:34:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T07:34:56","slug":"loft-preparation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/new-layout\/new-layout-progress\/loft-preparation\/","title":{"rendered":"Loft Preparation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

February 2021<\/strong>
These are the first photos I took of the loft before we actually moved into the house. There was no ladder and the loft hatch was very small. The pictures are from the loft hatch looking towards the outside wall. The previous owners said that they had never been up there before. My initial observations were that the joists are very close together and there was a lot of insulation up there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Towards outer wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Left side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Right side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I also noted that the loft seems to have been built by “A Pike”.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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June 2021<\/strong>
After we moved in I took a few more photos of the original condition of the loft –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Right side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Left side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Left side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Left side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Outer end wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Orginal house wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Again these showed the large amounts of glass fibre insulation in the loft which had to be removed before I could lay floorboards (stilts would have made the headroom unusable). They also show the large number of flies there were up there (do they hibernate?). The original house wall shows where there was a previous smaller extension<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


The first and possibly key step was to get the loft hatch enlarged and a decent ladder fitted – <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ladder from the office<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Looking up to the loft<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Looking down from the loft<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I went for an all-in-one wooden ladder unit and got a carpenter to professionally fit it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

January 2022<\/strong>
I also had an electrician fit two LED strip lights and a ring main with four double sockets. I was then able to lay chipboard floorboards from the nearest DIY superstore. Here are some pictures from –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Left side showing new sockets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Left side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Left side – house wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Left side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Looking to outer wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Floorboards<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Looking to house wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Lights<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Righ side – extractor fan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Right side – pipes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Right side – pipes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Right side – pipes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
As can be seen from the pictures above the left side was completely clear of obstructions but the right side had a multitude of central heating pipes and extractor fan ducts. Because of this, I decided to lay boards as far as possible into the eaves on the left side but only up to the extractor fan (which I moved back a bit) on the right side.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

April 2022<\/strong>
The next step was to line the underside of the rafters with ‘Thermawrap’ insulation. This is like foil-covered bubble wrap that you staple onto the rafters and seal the joins with silver tape. I also put it across the end walls and made a partition ‘wall’ of it to block off the right side.
The idea is to create a completely sealed ‘tent’ that allows air to circulate around it for ventilation but stays warmer\/cooler inside as appropriate. I will also be adding heating\/cooling systems to it.
Here are some photos of work in progress –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Left side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Left side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Outer wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Right side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Right side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Right side – pipes behind<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Above lights<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Join across top<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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August 2022<\/strong>
And here are some more showing the left side almost completed –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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March 2023<\/strong>
And a few more from March 2023 showing the last bits to be completed on the right side and the house wall end –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s very bright and shiny up there and looks like I’m growing dodgy plants or something so I might line parts of it with white-faced 3mm hardboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 2021These are the first photos I took of the loft before we actually moved into the house. There was no ladder and the loft hatch was very small. The pictures are from the loft hatch looking towards the outside wall. The previous owners said that they had never been up there before. My initial… <\/p>\n

Read the full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1783,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1787","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1787"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2221,"href":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1787\/revisions\/2221"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikesmodelrailway.ddns.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}