Spaceship loft

Work is continuing with the loft conversion. Much of the internal insulation has now been installed. It is made up of two different materials - Xtratherm, a rigid polyurethane foam board, overlain with a silvery space blanket material.

For the ceiling / roof level insulation the builders have installed 100mm of Xtratherm, and 80mm for the 'dormer cheeks' (the side walls of the dormer).

Excitingly, this is very much how the future was meant to look. Less excitingly, this shimmering, spacey look is being covered by plasterboard - which I don't think has ever been accused of looking cool or futuristic.

We are looking into whether we can add extra insulation into the spaces created for fitting the LED lighting. This might be possible if we can specify LEDs which can be surrounded by insulation, or by using lighting covers. The additional insulation isn't part of current practice, or needed to meet building regs, but it would be a good thing to do if possible.

Today we also had a visit from an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) assessor. In order to get the government payment for generating renewable energy from our PV panels (known as the FiT - Feed In Tariff), it is necessary to have a home which achieves at least D on the EPC scale. We should find out the result in a couple of weeks - according the scheme rules, assessment needs to be delayed until the staircase has been built into the loft room.