When deciding to have your loft boarded it can be tempting to find the cheapest option available, but all too often this turns out to be the wrong choice or even not the choice you’ve asked for. I’ve lost count now of how many times people have come to us with a cheaper quote only to find they’ve actually been quoted for only a part of what we quoted for and for a far more inferior system.
Within this blog we’ll be covering an install that we recently completed for a customer from Wolverhampton that had his loft boarded last year by a “specialist” loft boarding company with 30 years of experience.
We’re not entirely sure what the previous boarding companies experience was, but it certainly didn’t seem as though it was experience in loft boarding. Especially in todays digital age, you have to be extremely careful of taking what a website says for granted. Just because someone says they are an experienced specialist it doesn’t necessarily mean they are. Can they prove their reviews? Are their testimonials even real? Is it even a real company? These are all questions you need to consider before deciding to have work completed that may have an impact on the structure of your home.
This company claimed to be the “cheapest solution” and even state on their website that they regularly check their competitors prices to make sure they are the cheapest. When it comes to loft boarding, like with any other home renovation project, cheap means cheap, and generally you’re getting what you pay for. You have to understand that to do a job cheaply you have to cut corners on materials and workmanship and this ultimately may lead to serious problem down the line.
So where did the previous installation go wrong?
Firstly, the boarding had been laid directly onto the joists, there was no strengthening completed and no way to properly insulate the house. Some of the boards were not even fixed onto anything solid at the ends, so one step in the wrong place would have left the customer falling right through the ceiling, and being at risk of a severe injury or worse.
Unfortunately, the customer paid the previous installers before they had completed the job and they never returned despite repeated phone calls to express their dissatisfaction with the install.
How did Instaloft recover the previous poorly installed loft?
The customer called Instaloft in to see what could be done to correct or finish the floor and to line the roof, however the only way to do this correctly was to remove the original works and start again.
First, we removed and disposed of the entire original floor. As we did this we found a lot of off cuts and debris underneath the old floor which also needed to be cleared but should never have been left there in the first place. Following a full clearance of the previous flooring, we then installed our raised galvanised steel subframe and then fully insulated the floor throughout.
Once the subframe had been fitted securely in place we installed the new boarding by screwing it into the steel subframe to make a strong and stable floor, safe to walk on and held in place firmly to prevent any loose boarding and extend the longevity of the loft flooring. Finally, we lined the whole roof to protect the customers belongings from all of the old dust and debris from the roof tiles. As you can see from the images on the left, the transformation is quite different to the previous flooring.
If you would like to use your loft for storage please be careful. Going for the cheapest option may require you to have it all done again later! You really do get what you pay for, and when it comes to home renovations like loft boarding, it is well worth the investment. Remember your home is probably your most expensive asset, why take chances with it?
To find out more about how we can help to transform your loft into a safe and strong storage area that’s safe to access and use for storage, please get in touch or send us a message on our Facebook page.