Lining the inside of a roof?

[Rob_M]

Hello all,

I'm after a little advice.

My girlfriends house (built around 1930/35) has a tiled slate roof.  We boarded out some of the loft a few years back, and from the inside of the loft you can see the sky through the gaps in some of the slate tiles.  There is no layer of felt/plastic, and from the inside its actually hard to tell how the slates are event fixed to the roof (can't see any horizontal battens for example) - might all just be wishes and prayers

The roof doesn't appear to be leaking, but what we do get is a lot of dust/cr4p landing on everything thats now stored in the loft.

We're not in a position to redo the roof, but I did wonder whether we could get a couple of rolls of plastic sheeting, attach it to the rafters in the loft, to provide a bit of a "shield" over the top of the stuff we are storing up there.  Wouldn't need to do the whole of the inside of the roof with it, just over the boarded areas.  It seems like a "good" idea, but, as I have no experiences with rooves, and, its not my house, I didn't want to do/suggest anything that would be a problem.

I've watched a couple of "how to build a roof" videos online, mainly from companies that provide roofing materials, and there is mention of avoiding condensation, which, obviously the plastic sheeting might not be great for - but as the air would be able to move above the sheeting (between the rafters) there would still be lots of air movement.

If time/money was not an option that I'd personally want to strip the roof and have it done in whatever way modern rooves are done, they seem to have a layer of something over the rafter before the tiles are added, which I think would help keep all this dust and stuff off of all our boxes/cases.

Any advice would be appreciated, just looking for a very cost effective, easy to do myself solution, that won't screw anything up

Thanks in advance,

Rob

Edited June 11, 2022 by Rob_M

[Mr Punter]

Just cover the stuff you have stored with dust sheets.

[joe90]

The only way to do this properly is to strip and felt and batten but if it’s purely to stop dust/crap then staple plastic sheeting to the underside of the rafters but leave gaps top and bottom fir air circulation.

[Rob_M]

Hi,

Thanks both for the replies.

@Mr Punter - we did consider covering up all our stuff, but obviously then when we need to access it (surprising more often than you'd think - tools are all up there etc) - we'd have to move the dust sheets and all the crappy stuff would go everywhere, just didn't feel quite so practical.  I probably should have mentioned more about the frequency/access to the loft in my original post - apologies.

@joe90 - so the plastic sheeting shouldn't be a problem regarding condensation etc?  e.g. there isn't any other type of material I could/should perhaps use instead of the plastic sheeting?  And yeah, I'd be leaving gaps as you suggested.  Potentially two large B&Q tarps could do this job for about £8, although I was thinking of something a bit thicker and in a roll to do a tidier job.

Thanks again both for the replies, appreciated

[Tennentslager]

Take a few pictures, we like pictures of roofs...will help everyone see what you describe 😉

 

 

[joe90]

40 minutes ago, Rob_M said:

so the plastic sheeting shouldn't be a problem regarding condensation etc? 

Not if there is air flow around it., you could try DPC sheet https://www.screwfix.com/p/capital-valley-plastics-ltd-vapour-barrier-green-300ga-20-x-2-5m 

Edited June 11, 2022 by joe90

[Rob_M]

@Tennentslager - alas we don't live together so I can't take the photos at the moment, but can update this post in due course.  But basically, if you are in the loft, you can see the wooden rafters and the underside of the slate tiles - nothing else.  I'm assuming the gaps where I can see light from outside coming through the slates is normal, perhaps they are not all perfectly smooth etc, but they are all overlapping so no water appears to be coming through.

@joe90 - that's great, thank you, I'll check the link too.

Sorry for the delay responding to you both, I don't appear to get email notifications from this forum when people reply (will look for settings now whilst I'm hear).