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Should insulation go over joists?

Insulating between the joists of your loft will keep your house warmer, but make the roof space above colder. This means pipes and water tanks in the loft space could be more likely to freeze, so you will need to insulate them.

energysavingtrust.org.uk - Roof and loft insulation guide - Energy Saving Trust

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An alternative way to insulate your loft is to fit rigid insulation boards between and over the rafters. Rafters are the sloping timbers that make up the roof itself. This isn’t a DIY job, so you’ll need a specialist professional to insulate your roof. The roof space will be warmer than with standard loft insulation, so you won’t need to worry so much about freezing tanks and pipes. You can board the floor for storage without having to raise it to create extra depth.

Disadvantages:

Insulating at rafter level is much more expensive than most standard loft insulation. As well as insulating the roof, you will have to insulate any gable walls, party walls and chimneys in the loft space. If you leave these uninsulated, then the heat will bypass your new insulation making it ineffective. Insulating at rafter level is fundamentally less efficient than insulating the loft floor. This is because you’ll need to heat a larger volume of air (the air in the loft as well as the air in the rest of the house) and you’ll have a larger surface area losing heat to the outside. Some companies may offer to fix your damaged or leaking roof by spraying foam insulation directly onto the underside of the roof without fixing the problem first. We don’t recommend that you do this. As with any type of insulation, you need to make sure that the roof is dry and in good condition before adding any insulation. Also, right now many mortgage companies aren’t willing to offer loans for properties with foam insulation in the roof, which can make it very difficult to sell a property with this type of insulation. If you want to turn your loft into a heated, useable room, then you need to take a slightly different approach and carry out a loft conversion to create a room in the roof.