How Much Does It Cost To Board Out a Loft?
Cost to Board Out a Loft
| job | Description (In an empty semi detached loft space) | labour |
| 1 | Screw down half a dozen chipboard sections over a supporting wall which the bloke will have to collect….1 man half a day. | £90 |
| Plus materials etc. for the above | £70 | |
| 2 | Job 1…. but with 100 mm thick rigid insulation boards underneath…. 1 man 1 day | £190 |
| Plus all materials etc. for the above | £250 | |
| 3 | Board out the whole loft with chipboard. (definitely not recommended). This will take 2 men I day. | £275 |
| Plus materials etc. for the above | £375 | |
| 4 | Job 3…but with 100 mm thick rigid insulation boards underneath…. 2 men 1.5 days. | £425 |
| Plus all materials etc. for the above | £725 |
Information Sheet on Boarding the Loft
Don’t do it. All you’ll do is fill the loft with stuff that you will never see or use again, that you’ll only have to shift when you move house next, or your kids will chuck away when you shuffle off this mortal coil!
Fill the loft with insulation instead! You’re not listening are you? Ok, ruin your ceilings, it’s not our problem.
Actually, ruining your ceilings will be a problem if you store too much stuff and/or store it in the wrong place. Ceilings were only designed to support themselves, not half a ton of nostalgia.
Loft boarding is usually done with 8’ long x 2’ wide, interlocking chipboard sections. If you are clever, you can have these arranged so that they span a bedroom or landing wall below. This will then carry a lot of the weight of the boxes you are going to put on them, and not the ceiling joists.
Now there’s another problem, what about the insulation? The more boards you have covered with stuff, the less insulation you can lay, therefore more heat you waste. This can be overcome by laying insulation, level with the tops of the relevant joists. (You probably have it there already). Rigid insulation boards (Celotex, Kingspan) are then fixed across the joists and these are then covered with the chipboard.
As a rule of thumb, 100mm thick rigid boards have twice the insulation capability of 100mm thick glassfible rolls.
Insulation boards come in thicknesses up to 120mm (£80) and will probably have to be cut in half to get them in the loft. The chipboard sections cost about £10 each.
FAQs 'traffic light' guide
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What's easy about this job…
Open or CloseIt's non-technical work.
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What's tricky about this job…
Open or CloseGetting the customer to empty the loft first. A builder will charge for his time if he has to do this for you.
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