Is an attic a good place to store food

[survival chic]

My house is newish built house only a year old and the attic is well insulted. We will be putting floorboards down in the attic to help us store stuff there. But my question is would it be ok to store canned food only in the attic and what are the cons? or precautions do i need to take.

[Arzosah]

Hi there! Depends on where the insulation is, I think - if its immediately under the roof tiles, then I *think* it will be fine, as long as the flooring will take the weight. If its on the floor, then the food is exposed to extremes of heat and cold, which shortens the shelf life slightly. But not hugely - and you could even use a survival blanket to tuck around it to help with that. We need our storage space!

[short circuit]

I store food in the loft top tip is put any load over areas where there is a wall under it also if you have beams say 10 to 12 inch running the lenth of your loft batten from them to the foor to it adds strenth when useing that interlocking loft board. Tin food is ok up there aviod putting any packet food up there as and food smell will attract vermin up the walls.

[The Ace of Spades]

It may be a good idea to store your tins in strong plastic storage containers. Not only will this keep them tidier and easier to move, if need be, but if you were to get vermin in your attic, this would prevent them from peeing and pooping all over your tins.

Ace.

[short circuit]

yes Ace air tight works well

[poppypiesdad]

An attic is a great place to store food , large capacity , hidden from view , safe from flooding .

However lofts in new houses are not designed like old houses , so be wary of filling the loft ,ask you house builder about the design load calculations , and it will give you a ball park of how much weight it will take , there might maybe a ton of stuff 6 foot above your head as you sleep and wouldn't want that comming down to meet you whilst you sleep

Don't floor on top of the insulation , its designed to be fluffy and so compressing it will reduce its efficiency, use spacer blocks to the height of the insulation then floor over it with chipboard flooring 22mm is better than 18 , just remember to take into account the weight of timber and flooring as well

Consider fitting a velux window in the loft , if there is not a sky light as this will also act as an escape window .

Fit proper lighting , a couple of fluro tubes or pendant lights are worth there weight in gold to save you fumbelling about with a torch

And considered fitting a loft ladder , then you'll not have to keep a set of ladders inside the house.

Jamie

[12mp82]

An attic is a great place to store food , large capacity , hidden from view , safe from flooding .

However lofts in new houses are not designed like old houses , so be wary of filling the loft ,ask you house builder about the design load calculations , and it will give you a ball park of how much weight it will take , there might maybe a ton of stuff 6 foot above your head as you sleep and wouldn't want that comming down to meet you whilst you sleep

Don't floor on top of the insulation , its designed to be fluffy and so compressing it will reduce its efficiency, use spacer blocks to the height of the insulation then floor over it with chipboard flooring 22mm is better than 18 , just remember to take into account the weight of timber and flooring as well

Consider fitting a velux window in the loft , if there is not a sky light as this will also act as an escape window .

Fit proper lighting , a couple of fluro tubes or pendant lights are worth there weight in gold to save you fumbelling about with a torch

And considered fitting a loft ladder , then you'll not have to keep a set of ladders inside the house.

Jamie

I was thinking along the same lines as I was reading the posts then got to yours to see it written already.

Modern roof spaces aren't designed for any kind of storage really, though I am sure some stuff is going to be OK. I think that insulation is meant to be about 300mm+ these days, 100mm in between the joists and 200mm run across the joists, so be very careful going up there in the first place

There are a lot better places to store your food stuff than in the roof, maybe toilet rolls and other such items are best up there out of the way.