[OhLaLa]

A stand at one of the agricultural shows last year was promoting using fleece as loft insulation.

My first thought was how much the mice would love it.

Anyone any experience or tales of this?

 

[mab]

It's supposed to be very good; Fire retardant and it's certainly very low environmental impact insulation, although not the cheapest - hence I've not tried it.

Don't know whats involved in processing the wool, but I assume it would be washed at the very least. 

As for mice - would it attract them any more than other insulation?

mab

[woollyval]

I actually have a company that makes sheeps wool insulation and its brilliant. The wool is processed first...ie washed, dried, carded and needlefelted, although some other companies heat seal it with polyester. The fleece is sometimes treated with borax against insects. Mice will get into any insulation if they inhabit your loft and can cause fires and other problems from chewing cables so should not be allowed access to your loft.

Raw wool is not suitable for loft insulation due to the oils and dirt in it and the reason that sheeps wool insulation is expensive is the regulations to keep the environment free of grease and sheep dips etc. The processing costs are high. However the finished product is the safest and nicest insulation you can have and the left over bits of ours can be used to stuff kids toys...couldn't do that with fibre glass!

[OhLaLa]

Interesting replies, thank you.

Would love to know more, thewoollyshepherd, but 'mice not be allowed access to your loft'? Hoho. If only.

 

[ballingall]

 thewoollyshepherd, but 'mice not be allowed access to your loft'? Hoho. If only.

 

Hehe, funny, that's what I thought!

Beth

[woollyval]

 
I have to say that of course....but in reality......

[johnmac]

I insulated my loft last winter with fibreglass rolls to a depth of 18inches. It's made a huge difference but when I was looking to buy last year, sheep fleece was THE best insulation, but three times the price of the stuff I bought....

If memory serves ne right it was 4x better than the fibreglass insulation I installed... But couldn't afford it!

[Castle Farm]

Thought about using our fleeces, but was advised I'd need to soak them in borax. Seems a helova waste just giving them to my shearer though.

[woollyval]

No castle farm you don't have to soak them in borax but you DO need them clean.....otherwise the smell and grease will cause a problem....esp if you wish to sell your house at any time in the future
Borax is used as an anti moth agent but we know and have found misting on borax, neem and tee tree will work too....but nothing is perfect against anything....including mice!!

The huge problem is that to make sheepswool insulation, clean wool is needed and that means scouring (washing) and drying it and then fluffing it up so it traps air...the key to insulation! This is an incredibly expensive business...believe me I know and in this country with our fab environmental policies, minimum wage and H&S etc etc the costs are fair and true.....makes small scale businesses like mine very difficult to run with any profit, but do not exploit people or degrade ecosystems....!

[doganjo]

I am an avid fan of Kevin MLoud and his Grand Designs [programme.  I remember one project used sheep's wool insulation in the walls.  If I remember rightly the people building the house had ready access to fleeces, parents farm I think.  It seemed to be in large oblong sections about 4 inches deep and they cut it to size with shearing scissors.  A friend told me today that she has fleeces not yet used for various reasons, and i know others in the same position, so why is it so expensive to use as insulation?

[OhLaLa]

My guess is it's expensive to buy in doganjo, but I'm thinking if we have the fleece spare we should do this for ourselves.

So: If I wash the fleece (on a hot summers day) in a horse antimite shampoo (it kills mites and comes in gallon tubs), pop a decent amount of tea tree oil in the rinse, dry it, card it, that should then be fine for me to pop it up in the loft space. Does that sound about right thewoollyshepherd?

  

[dyedinthewool]

Hi 'Woollyshepherd'

Do you/they use any sort of fleece?

Is it as  OhLaLa say the cost of buying in the fleece? or is it the cleaning that is the cost?

[OhLaLa]

When I say buy in, I mean expensive for the end user i.e. the person putting it in their loft, from the 'manufacturing' point of view I suspect the cost is in the processing.

 

[mab]

I've got a raw fleece that I was going to wash and put in the loft, but haven't got around to it yet; need to wait for warmer drying weather now.

I was going to put in a 'bag' and bung it in the washing machine (set to woollens, obviously  ) with regular washing powder - is there any reason why this wouldn't work?

It's a shetland fleece, but it's probably not worth my doing anything more complicated than loft insulation  .

mab

[waterhouse]

This is what the laundrette is for!