Safe working in the loft

[Lawrence TE]

Hi,

I'm sure this is the wrong forum so apologies in advance but I wonder if anyone would be kind enough to advise on a safety issue concerning the installation of loft insulation. (this isn't the usual one about buried cables, luckily!)

I've been roped into insulating my mother's bungalow but I'm also thinking about doing my own house. It seems straightforward enough and all the stuff about cable ratings, etc. being reduced makes sense so I'm ok there but after reading half a thousand articles on fitting loft insulation I haven't read anything yet that mentions isolating the electric in the loft before any works take place.

Perhaps there's no need but I'd like to hear an electrician's opinion before proceeding - it seems very strange – am I supposed to be loving about and working in the loft when there’s live cables loose underfoot?

I think my loft will have just the lighting circuit and shower - so I assume I can simply isolate those circuits at the consumer unit and I'll still be able to run an inspection lamp from the sockets? I don't want to turn off everything because of the server I run and the sky box doesn't like being turned off.

The bungalow makes me wonder, though. All the circuits will be in the loft space so how can I run an inspection lamp if I have to turn off the sockets circuit? It'd be a pain having to work with torches.

Since nothing I’ve read mentions turning off the electric maybe I’m being overly careful but with electric...

Many thanks for any help that anyone can offer.

 

[1shortcircuit]

I personally would take a peak at the condition of the loft space and decide on a plan.

Are you able to take photos and post them on here? There may be concerns that need rectifying before you lay the insulation.

I'm not sure if you have seen my thread regarding Insulation of lofts?

:thumbsup

 

[Lawrence TE]

I haven't read that one - will search for it in a moment.

I had a look at both lofts (no pics, sadly). My house looks pretty easy: what look like the lighting circuits (3mm cables?) strewn all over the place but I can safely cover those. The shower cable I can channel the insulation round quite easily.

The bungalow is a bit different. The cables, (and some of them look as though they could be 6mm thick (oblong cables so I imagine they're measured at the greatest width?)) are affixed to the joists. I'm not sure if they should be lifted and laid above the insulation or the insulation channelled round them (there are quite a lot of them so not sure about that). I read somewhere that that the joists act as a heat sink so a little uncertain.

Also, there's some boarding in the bungalow with a thickish looking cable running beneath. I assume it'll be ok to insulate over the top of the boarding (supposed to fill in the ends with insulation) as the cables'll still have plenty of air round them - albeit not exactly open to the atmosphere?

As with all these simple jobs it's becoming tricky to get right!

 

[1shortcircuit]

I've saved you the search