More on insulation (From Hereford Times)

More on insulation

11:45am Tuesday 5th December 2006

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I've been talking about insulation this week, it was sparked off by going to visit some friends who live in a typically ancient Herefordshire home, draughts and all. They had just had some bales of 'thermafleece' delivered, made from 100% British sheepswool.
It came in pads which resembled the fibreglass that you get ready cut in to widths to fit between the rafters. In every other way it was so unlike fibreglass. No itching or protective clothing needed here - you could lie on this stuff as a mattress. It was going in the loft.

I had a look on the Ty-Mawr Lime website, (www.lime.org.uk), a company near Brecon specialising in traditional and ecological building materials, which is where they'd got it from. They supply other natural and re-cycled insulation materials, made from woodfibre and waste newsprint.

I reckon that, had they understood the value of insulation, the builders who put up the local red sandstone houses in the past, would have used sheepswool in the rafters - maybe they did, can anyone enlighten me on this?

Whether they did or not, i suspect my friends with thermafleece in the roof will have a warm glow this winter, keeping in the heat with insulation grown on UK grass.