How Much Does It Cost To Ventilate a Loft?



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Cost to Ventilate a Loft




job
Description
labour
1Fit an air brick into each gable. This will take one man a morning from a ladder but he may charge for the day for saving you the price of scaffolding(Gables are quite high).
£195
2Fit 6 / 7 roof vents. This will take 1 man an easy day.
£300
3Fit soffit and ridge vents to a semi-detached house. This will take two men a day.
£500
“Labour” at £175 a day (tradesman) £100 (labourer), includes incidental fixings etc. and tipping charges. “Materials” if mentioned, are larger things (a boiler) and stuff only you can choose (tiles etc).  Also VAT must be added all round.

Information Sheet on Ventilating a Loft


100 years ago it wasn’t necessary, no one had central heating so lofts didn’t get full of warm water vapour and as they weren’t felted, there was loads of natural ventilation under the slates or tiles.

Nowadays, in some houses (and to be honest it’s not that many), if there’s not much insulation in the loft, and it’s felted under the tiles and whoever built it didn’t allow for air to get in at the eaves, condensation can occur.

This only applies to “old fashioned” felt though. Modern felts are breathable. If you have breathable felt, you won’t have condensation, so you can stop reading right now.

It also happens if some pillock has shoved the insulation right into the eaves and covered the air gaps the builder left there. So have a look at that first.

If the insulation isn’t the problem and air is able to get in at the eaves, then you need to get it out again when it’s been warmed up by the water vapour and risen to the top of the loft. Very often, in a “normal” semi, three roof vents on each side of the ridge and one on the hip slope, all fitted as high as possible, will do the trick. They can be bought off the shelf and fitted in a morning. Some are even reasonably unobtrusive.

If you can’t deal with the idea of roof vents then get ridge vents fitted. These replace two or three existing ridge copings and hardly show.

If air can’t get in at the eaves, you can fit soffit vents, providing you have soffits of course. Soffits are the horizontal surfaces that fill the gap between the fascia board and the house wall. Fascia boards are what your guttering is fixed to. That’s it, I’m not explaining anything else!

If you don’t have soffits, then more roof vents fitted at the bottom of the roof pitches will get the air in for you.

If you happen to live in a house with a couple of gable ends, you needn’t trouble the roof at all.  A large air brick can be fitted into each gable…….job done.

The other day I was shown some plastic, sprung loaded devices that were pushed between the old fashioned felt overlaps from inside the loft. They hold the felt apart and allow air in and out. They cost about £8 apiece and I suppose an average loft might need about 16 of them. So for £130 you can do it yourself!

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