On Sunday, December 9, 2012 2:42:18 PM UTC, Geoff Pearson wrote:
I am thinking of improving the floor insulation of my house. Under the
ground floor of my 1897 stone-built house in Edinburgh I have a space about
1.6m high under all the rooms so access for work is very good. My energy
bills (gas+electricity) are about £2800 a year.



The floor is a standard Edinburgh floor: 11 inch joists with the space
between filled with ash and covered in plaster, supported on riven wooden
strips, themselves supported on battens along the joists. This deafening

Forgive me for repeating this story if you read it before.

The architect Hope Bagnell once described the sound insulation of Glasgow tenements (with sand/ash filling between joists) and compared it to that in (1960s) buildings. He said "in Victorian times it was boasted that you could not hear a baby being born in the room above. These days you can hear it being conceived".

Robert