So here it is, some from black sheep, some from white, and of course there will be no problem getting to sleep at night with all those sheep to count!

 The 60 bags of sheeps wool insulation arrived and way so little it is childs play to move them around. We bought bags with 75mm thick, 60cm wide rolls 5 metres long. This suited our rafters which are mostly on 2 foot centres, the small difference is not an issue and the two layers of sheeps wool are just tacked in place using a small staple gun.

As the product is made by the http://www.blackmountaininsulation.com/ you expect to get some black sheepswool, and you do! (see bag on left!).

It is very easy to work with. You cut it with household scissors,  and holes for ducts and pipes are a doddle. There is no need for face masks and all the problems with irritation that can arise with man made insulation, particularly the fibre glass stuff.

 We thought long and hard about what to use for this, and eventually decided to go for sheeps wool insulation. It needs to be about half as thick again as conventional insulation such as Cellotex, costs about 15-20% more, so about £200 plus VAT in our case.

The web site of the people we bought it from, www.blackmountaininsulation.com/ pretty much convinced us that it had so many advantages over conventional materials the small extra cost was irrelevant. It is treated with Borax to protect it against moths and insects and this also gives it greater fire retardance, but has no other chemicals in it, and “breathes” as well as insulating, so avoids the risk of moisture becoming trapped and creating mould.

 Here is the sheeps wool arriving in the lorry! It’s very light and easy to handle, in fact quite fun to through around!

 To improve heat and sound insulation we are using Rockwool R40 between the joist spaces. Not as nice to work with as the sheepswool insulation we are using for the roof insulation which is also being done and we will cover next week.

 Today our sheepswool came from the Black Mountain Insulation company in Wales. We are using 2 layers of 75mm thick sheeps wool insulation under the sedum roof to get a similar U value as 100mm of conventional insulation such as Celotex or Kingspan.