SE23 Forum

Hi,

Can anyone who owns a half house in the area answer a few questions I have with regards to the loft.

When clearing out the loft of builders rubbish I noticed that there is a large cavity below where the two chimney flues meet at loft floor level going down a good metre or so and at least 2 metres wide. There was a fairly substantial amount of builders rubbish (breeze blocks, Cardboard, insulation packaging) filling this space which I have now cleared out but I was wondering if I should replace this rubbish with any sort of insulating materal? Also does anyone know why this space is there at all? Is this just the cavity space between our house and the neighbours?

Thanks....

A curious HOB.

Sounds like a curious form of construction. I presume the house is a semi-detached. When was it built?

Its terraced and it was built circa 1905.

Might be useful to clarify how deep is the gap you're talking about. If it's 2m across by 1m down, how far back does it go? I'm guessing less than a foot. Still a reasonable amount of debris to remove, though.

If your half-house is anything like ours, it's just a gap (rather than an insulating cavity which I think tends to be a space between two sets of bricks). I think we have something similar to what you describe, though ours happens to be above the level of the loft floor, but it might be different depending on the specific house.

The rubble/builder's waste which was in there before was probably doing something towards insulation, but (and I am no expert) the best plan might be to just lay loft insulation over/into the gap if you can.