Insulating Your Attic Before Winter: Clear It All Out First

In many houses built between the 1970s and the 1990s, in Saint-Pierre-d'Irube, in Mouguerre or up on the higher ground of Bayonne, winter always announces itself the same way. The upstairs landing stays cold. The heating runs more than it should. And up above, the insulation laid when the house was built has slowly flattened over the decades. Redoing your attic insulation is one of the most worthwhile jobs to get done before the real cold sets in, on one condition people often forget: the day the installer pushes open the hatch, he needs to find joists and old insulation. Not the First Communion boxes, grandma's cradle or the suitcases from your last trip. So the project starts long before the blowing machine turns up, and more often than not it plays out… in the living room.

A full attic means a stalled project

Unconverted attics have a funny habit: everything we don't know where to put goes up there, and almost nothing ever comes back down. On the day of the quote, the installer peers through the hatch and asks the question nobody wants to hear: “Can you clear all this out before I come?” He has good reasons.

• Blown insulation gets everywhere. The loose fibres are blown across the whole surface and fill every last nook. A box forgotten in a corner ends up buried; a trunk left on the floor leaves a gap in the layer.
• Afterwards, nothing goes back up. Compressed insulation doesn't insulate well. You no longer walk on it, you no longer put anything on it: the attic-as-junk-room is over.
• The dust comes down. Years of dust, old itchy glass wool, sometimes signs of mice, and all of it travels through a hatch sitting in the middle of the hallway or at the back of a bedroom cupboard.
• The ground floor turns into a warehouse. The inherited chest of drawers, the wooden trunk, the armchair kept “for later”: once they're downstairs, they have nowhere to go. Meanwhile, the blowing hose snakes through the entrance hall and up the stairs.

There is a less pleasant truth too. Scorching in August, freezing in January, sometimes damp after the heavy autumn rains: a poorly insulated attic was never a good place for photo albums, family papers or linen. Clearing it out, you often find warped cardboard and fabrics that smell musty. They deserve better.

Moving the attic out of the house while the work is done

Rather than turning the living room into a makeshift furniture store for weeks, many homeowners prefer to move everything out in one go. A self-storage unit then works as an extra room outside your home. Whatever comes down from the attic goes straight into the car, the house stays liveable and the sorting can wait until the insulation is in.

• Clean, dry and ventilated. Archives, albums and family furniture are far better off there than under a badly insulated roof.
• Genuinely private. CCTV, electronic locks and a personal access code: nobody but you opens your storage unit.
• Monthly, with no commitment. If the job slips by a week, you simply extend. Once everything is back in its place, 15 days' notice is all it takes.
• Long opening hours. At Les Pontots, the units are accessible every day from 6am to 10pm, Sundays included: trips back and forth fit in at the weekend or after work.
• Help with the heavy lifting. Trolleys and hand trucks free to use, plus a self-service goods lift at Les Pontots: no need to haul grandpa's trunk by hand.

Michel and Anne, in Saint-Pierre-d'Irube

Michel and Anne live in a 1982 house on the heights of Saint-Pierre-d'Irube. Their blown-in insulation was booked for early November, but the attic was overflowing: archive boxes, the children's toys, an artificial Christmas tree, two suitcases and a dismantled wardrobe. They hired a van for the Saturday, got to Les Pontots as soon as it opened and put everything in a storage unit at our Bayonne Les Pontots centre, just a few minutes from home via the Grand Basque roundabout. The installer found a bare attic and could get started the moment he arrived. As for the sorting, they did it box by box, on December evenings.

From the hatch to the storage unit: the checklist

The right time to insulate is before the house starts asking for heating every evening. In autumn, installers' diaries fill up fast. Fix the date of the work first, then count backwards: start preparing to clear the attic a good two weeks beforehand.

• Book your storage unit at the same time as the installer. Booking online requires no bank card, but access can then take up to 15 days (that's the cooling-off period). Work coming up fast? Sign directly with our team and you get access straight away. Bring ID, proof of address and your bank details. As for insurance, your home insurance may already cover stored belongings; if not, we can take it out for you.
• Sort up there, not in the living room. Three piles before anything comes down: storage unit, recycling centre or charity, back into the house. Each box goes through the hatch only once.
• Gear up. Mask, gloves and long sleeves for anything that has been sleeping in the old insulation. Downstairs, a dust sheet under the hatch, bedroom doors closed and a cloth over the hallway furniture. A quick pass of the vacuum over the boxes before loading saves you carrying the dust all the way to your storage unit.
• Replace tired cardboard. Boxes that have suffered from damp or heat tear the first time you move them. Papers and photos in closed boxes, wooden furniture under a breathable cover, and on every box: “attic” plus what's inside.
• Estimate the volume. A few boxes and a suitcase fit in a small unit; a wardrobe or a dismantled bed quickly changes the picture. Two minutes are enough to work out the right storage unit size.
• Load in the right order. Heavy items at the back, light ones on top, and a narrow aisle so you can reach the Christmas decorations without unpacking everything.

One last point, to settle before the very first box: nothing will go back up onto the new insulation. Decide now where these belongings will live once the work is finished. A cupboard, the garage, or the storage unit for things you only use once a year.

Further reading

• Renovating in Bayonne or Anglet: free up space and protect your furniture
• Fragile or sentimental items: how to store them properly
• All our tips for decluttering and storage

• Insulate the attic in autumn, before the heating runs every evening.
• A completely empty attic for the installer: blown insulation covers everything.
• Three piles sorted on the spot, and each box comes down only once.
• Dust sheet, closed doors, mask: the dust stays upstairs.
• Storage unit booked at the same time as the installer, allowing for the online access delay.
• Nothing back on the new insulation: plan a lasting home for these belongings now.

Insulating your attic this autumn in Saint-Pierre-d'Irube, Mouguerre or Bayonne? Clear it out without cluttering up the house: book your storage unit online, with no bank card needed, or call our local team to find the right size together.