Ceiling Insulation in Inner West

Building in Inner West

Weatherboard and brick cottages through Yarraville, Seddon and Footscray, with postwar brick veneer further out through Braybrook and Sunshine. Reactive clay is common, and so are houses that have been lifted, restumped or extended more than once.

The housing stock

Weatherboard and brick cottages through Yarraville, Seddon, Kingsville and Footscray, giving way to postwar brick veneer through Braybrook, Sunshine and West Footscray. A lot of it sits on reactive clay and a lot of it has been restumped, lifted or extended, sometimes more than once. Roof pitches on the cottages are low enough that much of the void is crawl-only, and semi-detached rows share a party wall that ends the ceiling space at the boundary.

What changes the job here

• Low-pitched roofs on many of the cottages, so a lot of the space is crawl-only
• Original sections frequently have nothing up there at all
• Terrace and semi-detached rows share party walls, which affects how far a ceiling space runs

Access and local constraints

Side access on these blocks is usually nothing more than a metre of concrete, so everything comes through the house. That makes the protection of the path from the front door to the hatch part of the job rather than an afterthought. Low pitch is the other constraint, since a void that cannot be stood up in is slower to work across and much slower to extract from. Where a house has been lifted, the roof space is often the only original part of the building left untouched.

Climate and timing

Standard metro conditions with the western plains exposure showing up as wind rather than temperature. The enquiry pattern here is bill-driven more than comfort-driven, and it holds up through the year rather than spiking in autumn. Condensation in the older weatherboards is a real issue, particularly where a house has been sealed up with new windows and doors without anyone thinking about the roof space above it.

What we are usually asked for here

Original cottage sections commonly have nothing in them at all, which makes this one of the strongest parts of Melbourne for the upgrade. Where there is material it is often 1980s batts that have compressed to a fraction of their rating. Rodent activity is more common here than in the eastern suburbs and it changes a top-up into a removal. The usual blocker is a rear extension or a full renovation done in the last few years, which puts that part of the ceiling out of scope even where the front of the house is clearly in it.