Loft insulation in Palmers Green

Palmers Green's homes

Why Palmers Green lofts need attention

Palmers Green forms part of North London, an area whose housing is characterised by Victorian and Edwardian terraces, generous interwar semis and a scattering of post-war infill. The bulk of it went up during the 1870s through the 1930s, decades before insulation was a design consideration at all, and what sits above the ceilings today is usually a retrofit added at some point in the last fifty years to whatever standard was current at the time.

That matters because the standard has moved repeatedly. Lofts insulated in the 1980s typically received 100mm; earlier work was often 50mm or nothing. Current guidance is 270mm. A great many Palmers Green houses therefore contain insulation that was entirely adequate when it was fitted and is now doing roughly a third of the work it should be — while the homeowner reasonably assumes the loft is 'done'.

Many of the larger houses were divided into flats decades ago, so the loft often sits above a top-floor conversion with its own separate access. It is the sort of thing a survey establishes in ten minutes and a phone quote never can.