• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Horrible job to do, any tips very welcome.

C

Cabinetman

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Location
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Name
Ian
So I’ve been press ganged into clearing out all the boards and glass fibre and putting in sheep’s Wool and 18mm ply in the attic at DIL’s house in Williamsburg Virginia.
It’s going to be a sh…y Job and any help and tips gratefully accepted.
This is what we’ve done up to now.
There are two of us I’m 70 and Dil is good but not ever so strong. So we’re having 20 sheets cut into 4, 4’x2’ pieces, we shall be putting more timber underneath where any boards don’t land on a joist — not very much is like this.
Original thought was to clear the whole lot out before reinstating with new, but I’m thinking now to start working from the far end of the room and do a 4’ section right across the floor at a time.
Lots of very strong garbage bags and a workshop vacuum and screws to fasten down the ply, it wasn’t possible to buy 2’ boards with T@G edges btw. And 4’ won’t go through the hatch. We have full white coveralls and really good respirator masks.
So anyone done this?
Thanks Ian. Ps forgot to mention the odd Hornet!

IMG_4347.jpegIMG_4346.jpegIMG_4345.jpeg
 
Is wool not a huge breeding ground for various moths, like the brown house moth, white headed type, and clothes moth.
Had a huge plague of them at one time in this renter, flying into your dinner, maggots everywhere crawling up the ceiling,
in the furnishings, and what to me looks like "sleeping bags" everywhere.
The buggers will even eat through hardboard at the back of the press,
and into any grain or whatever, even in the tea box.
Perhaps not a problem with a very dry house.
 
Ian, is this the typical insulation used at the time with the waxed craft paper acting as a vapour barrier on the warm side?
Make good use of the gable end extractor fan as there will be a lot of dust and you will need to vacuum out the cavities which will be full of mouse droppings and other crap. Make use of a good mask and disposable haz/mat suit.
I would work from the eaves side towards the centre starting at the gable end with the window.
 
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I was trying to find the article, but it seems my computer software is too old to get the link for you..
but if you type into google (hopefully it'll work where you are)...
"Horror as moths invade Northern Ireland family's new dream home"
A family who built their "dream home" using eco-friendly insulation have spoken of their horror after discovering it was harbouring a moth infestation of "biblical proportions". Valerie Cappell and her family decided to do the "right thing" when building their new home by using sustainable wool as insulation.

www.independent.co.uk

Family's 'dream house' ravaged by moth infestation of 'biblical proportions'

'I think our situation could be the tip of an iceberg - many more people must have installed this kind of insulation'
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk

You'll see this has happened a few times, and personally I wouldn't risk it.
No wool in our house, but they are fond of a few bags of dog hair too, even eating through a plastic bag to get at it.!

All the best
Tom
 
TomTrees said:
I was trying to find the article, but it seems my computer software is too old to get the link for you..
but if you type into google (hopefully it'll work where you are)...
"Horror as moths invade Northern Ireland family's new dream home"
A family who built their "dream home" using eco-friendly insulation have spoken of their horror after discovering it was harbouring a moth infestation of "biblical proportions". Valerie Cappell and her family decided to do the "right thing" when building their new home by using sustainable wool as insulation.

www.independent.co.uk

Family's 'dream house' ravaged by moth infestation of 'biblical proportions'

'I think our situation could be the tip of an iceberg - many more people must have installed this kind of insulation'
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk

You'll see this has happened a few times, and personally I wouldn't risk it.
No wool in our house, but they are fond of a few bags of dog hair too, even eating through a plastic bag to get at it.!

All the best
Tom
Click to expand...
Oh heck, well it’s collected bought and paid for now, I shall investigate the company we’ve bought it from but I’m sure she/we will be installing it tomorrow?
duke said:
Ian, is this the typical insulation used at the time with the waxed craft paper acting as a vapour barrier on the warm side?
Make good use of the gable end extractor fan as there will be a lot of dust and you will need to vacuum out the cavities which will be full of mouse droppings and other crap. Make use of a good mask and disposable haz/mat suit.
I would work from the eaves side towards the centre starting at the gable end with the window.
Click to expand...
thanks Scott, yes that the plan we came up with this afternoon. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it at all though.
 
Good luck Ian, that’s not a nice job!
Back in the early 90’s I had a stint doing loft conversions in London, the old wool was not an issue, it was the soot from the Industrial Revolution that was the problem.
Only time I ever went to a gym, to use the sauna and steam room.
 
Bon courage, Ian, I don't envy you.
We live in an old house, too, and are currently redoing the kitchen. Someone before us (the two previous owners were Brits) has lined the stone walls with polystyrene-backed plasterboard, just dab-and-dobbed, with no reference to anything vertical or straight. Of course, where we have removed it ompletely, the polystyrene is just powder, having been eaten by mulots (I think they are the same as field mice, larger than a mouse, smaller than a rat), who live in the walls. We have one at the moment. He takes the bait without setting off the trap and he eats the poison, but so far has not succumbed to it.
Life in old houses the country, eh?
S
 
Can you open or temporarily remove that window Ian? If so, and depending on access below, you could get one of those rubbish chutes that directs straight into a skip to save bagging up or taking it through the house?
 
Hi Ian
I'd suggest you disinherit your DiL. :rolleyes: Yours is persuading you to clamber around in hazardous places while mine is constantly warning me not to and trying to ban me from climbing ladders :ROFLMAO:

It's a long time since I've done anything like that and wherever possible I used to "encourage" the young lads to remove and install insulation though I've never handled the wool type.

As you'll have to remove the existing floor boards and you'll presumably want to lay the ply with the longest length across the joist it wouldn't make sense to me to start at the end wall for a couple of reasons and I would start at the hatch and start with the first line from there towards the window wall, you'll need to get that first line square if possible. Doing it that way is imo far safer and convenient than either clambering across joists or moving boards or ply into temporary positions to stand on.
Once that first line is down you have a flat secure platform to work from especially when most of it will be on your knees. There's no reason why the new wool can't be laid in between as you go rather than do it all at once.

As said full PPE and great care removing the old stuff, you have my admiration and sympathy in equal measure.

Best of luck
Bob
 
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duke said:
You will probably come across electrical wiring that will need to be fixed ie. proper junction boxes etc.
Click to expand...
Just to note that the current rating of cables is greatly different if they are clipped in free air, or completely buried in insulation. Hopefully you only have lighting circuits up there, which with modern lamps will be not greatly loaded.
 
Blackswanwood said:
Can you open or temporarily remove that window Ian? If so, and depending on access below, you could get one of those rubbish chutes that directs straight into a skip to save bagging up or taking it through the house?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately it’s not possible, and it’s much smaller than it looks but as there’s one at each end I plan to open them both and run the fan to get a through draft.
Anyway I’m starting the job now, will report back.
 
Well the correct equipment really saved the day, and it wasn’t too bad at all, made a really good start and then went off to collect the plywood that the Home Depot was cutting into 2x4’ panels for us. The insulation was in two layers pink on the top with a paper layer and under that a grotty dark 2” mat in 12” sections, I haven’t seen this type for years, it had little bits of melted black glass amongst it. But into the bags it went.
Now my Dil is one of the fussiest people I’ve met when it comes to work done in her dream home but in this case I had to agree that they made a complete bollocks of cutting the ply up, all different lengths, varying by up to an inch and different widths varying by almost 2” but to compound the problem the cuts weren’t at 90 degrees the width on some was 22” at one end and 24” at the other.
Hitting the joists was going to be virtually impossible so they’ve got it all back again. It’s not going to be easy but we shall cut it ourselves on her DeWalt, I was sceptical but the bench I had built for her a couple of years ago is such that by extending the fence line a few feet it should be doable safely with the two of us.
Ian
 
Must have been newbies running the panel saw, no wonder you sent it back. Or they just couldn't give a bleep.
So tomorrow is insulation and ply?
 
Shame about the ply not cut as it should have been for you. Some sort of *nincompoop* to get it out of size by 2"... Bet the management aren't happy with the lost trade - due to incompetence.

Would you be able to hire a plunge saw and rails to do the cutting yourselves Ian? Just wondering if that would be easier than adjustment of the Dewalt table saw? Either way, nice and steady 👍.

Good to hear the messy bits turned out to not be too bad.
 
duke said:
Must have been newbies running the panel saw, no wonder you sent it back. Or they just couldn't give a bleep.
So tomorrow is insulation and ply?
Click to expand...
I thought the saw was partly to blame but some of them were at least parallel with the edges so yes total incompetence, it’s as I’d they put a piece of 2x4 on the track and put the ply on it to cut. A lot of wasted time and the hire of a truck.
No no no another two days of clearing out the garbage then vacuuming (did I say she’s fussy?) then finish off, what doesn’t get done she can finish off as I drive 9 hours North on Thursday.
Accipiter said:
Shame about the ply not cut as it should have been for you. Some sort of *nincompoop* to get it out of size by 2"... Bet the management aren't happy with the lost trade - due to incompetence.

Would you be able to hire a plunge saw and rails to do the cutting yourselves Ian? Just wondering if that would be easier than adjustment of the Dewalt table saw? Either way, nice and steady 👍.

Good to hear the messy bits turned out to not be too bad.
Click to expand...
I bet they weren’t happy at $1000 worth of ply wasted, I suppose we could have struggled and taken a day to work out which bits went together jigsaw style but doing that with 20 sheets of ply would have been quite a pita!
I’m not too worried about cutting it all up as it’s a good layout with plenty of support front and back. ✔️
 
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