Bother

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So, ages ago I/we made the decision not to insulate under the floors. I can’t recall if we discussed it, but I certainly contemplated it and then thought it probably wasn’t worth the hassle, and anyway, where would I find the time. Because there’s no way we could afford to get someone else to do it.

Of course, winter has been pretty cold. The heating certainly can wind the temperature up further, but it’s expensive, and so we’ve suffered through having it set to progressively lower temperatures to save money (and not have it, essentially, running continuously).

But the winter has decided to continue the run of being cold, which means I’m now trying to work out whether we should suck it up and insulate under the floor – at least, maybe under the lounge and hall floors, which are neither insulated nor covered with any kind of floor covering.

The double problem is that the lounge is the one bit of the house that you can’t get to from the main under floor access – and to make it accessible would require two trips under there, with me arsing around with mortar to make one of the ventilator half-bricked sections have a complete sort of arch-affair so I can make a small hole for me (and then the insulation) to scrabble through. Either that or re-opening the hole in the lounge floor, which I don’t want to do, because our nice floor-people sealed it up really rather well. I kind of wish that we’d made a permanent access hole-and-cover, because it’s the kind of thing I find convenient.

Other people probably think I’m strange for that though.

Of course, the question then arises, is it worth it?

And that’s a difficult question. I’ve no idea. I suspect not, although 50 quid would probably do the lounge floor and poossibly some of the hall (maybe all of it) (in sheep’s wool, which would be a bit nicer for me since I’d be scrabbling about under the floor in close proximity to it). Only to 50mm thick, but that *should* be enough. Mainly what we need to stop is the drafts coming through the gaps.

Anyhow, I remain unsure about what the best route is on that front. Ideally, the cold snap could end, and I could stop thinking about it.

As for the minor I’m still looking for a cheap second hand diff to put in that’s in ‘fair’ condition. She may eat it, or not, but hopefully it will last until we get to Canada. However, given that she might well eat it I’m disinclined to spend too much money on it.

Once I’m a bit more thoroughly over my cold I’m hoping to get a bit more enthusiastic about finishing the house…

KateWE

Kate's a human mostly built out of spite and overcoming transphobia-racism-and-other-bullshit. Although increasingly right-wing bigots would say otherwise. So she's either a human or a lizard in disguise sent to destroy all of humanity. Either way, it's all good.