Loft cleaning and insulation

[alex.mcintosh]

1930s open boarded loft has now been felted but is really dirty. Planning on tackling this myself by bagging all the existing insulation (20 years old), hoovering and reinsulating. Any comments/suggestions particularly with regard to hoovering - where to get, etc

[Mr Pointy]

I've just done this & it's a filthy job. Decide what sort of vacuum cleaner you want & look at something from Screwfix. I decided against a wet & dry vac & just went for one of these:

https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttb671vac-800w-15...

it can be used with or without bags & while it's not the greatest vaccum cleaner available it did the job & was cheap(ish). It's also quite compact for wrestling around in the loft & the cable rewinds. Note the wet & dry types often have smaller capacities even though they look bigger.

One issue I had was in disposing of the old insulation as the tips round here charge for taking DIY waste. You may need to budget for a Hippo bag or similar & although it doesn't weigh much insulation is very bulky.

[InitialDave]

I'm a tight fisted bugger, so I just bought a cheap secondhand bagless vacuum locally, on the basis that I'd have to kill several of them before I'd spent as much as even a cheap "tough" one. Turned out to cope just fine with all the usual decades old loft muck.

[dickymint]

I’d agree with the Titan vacuum- cheap as chips but amazing suction

[Mercury00]

alex.mcintosh said:

1930s open boarded loft has now been felted but is really dirty. Planning on tackling this myself by bagging all the existing insulation (20 years old), hoovering and reinsulating. Any comments/suggestions particularly with regard to hoovering - where to get, etc

What does the process of felting it involve? Can it be done from the inside without removing the tiles? I have the same kind of roof and my loft is full of soot and dust.

[Mr Pointy]

InitialDave said:

I'm a tight fisted bugger, so I just bought a cheap secondhand bagless vacuum locally, on the basis that I'd have to kill several of them before I'd spent as much as even a cheap "tough" one. Turned out to cope just fine with all the usual decades old loft muck.

Good point. There are loads on Gumtree for example.

[Doofus]

I tried this years ago and, as said before, it's a horrible job.

I ended up laying new insulation over the top, and boarding over it using risers.

[robwilk]

I too have done this at my sons, we used a wet and dry hoover Karcher with bags and a filter but it blocked incredibly quickly, and it seemed to fill the air with super fine dust. I contacted a local sweep to see if he would do it as he had vacuums suitable for soot and it damaged his hoover within half an hour. in the end we just swept up what we could with a dust pan and brush.
we now have a vacuum cyclone dust extractor so may give it another go to get it finally clean before laying the new insulation.
I have also thought of spraying with pva just to bond the dust down.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Efficiency-Cyclone-Powd...