Case Study:Insulation In A Day

Fixing a cold floor in a day

If I'm honest. I probably wasn't a hundred per cent sure that the service Q-Bot said they could do, could be done.

For anyone that has actually been underneath a set of floorboards, you'll know that they can be pretty gnarly spaces.

So a robot that could navigate the crappy floors of a Victorian terrace seemed too good to be true.

When we had one of the team from Q-Bot on our podcast in 2024. I made them promise to let me go see their robot in action. And I was proved wrong.

Why Home Improvements Hurt

If you spend as much time as we do at this magazine visiting buildings and discussing how they make people feel, you'll know one thing for sure.

Whether your describing a magnificent commercial complex having a refit or Derek from Basingstoke getting his windows refurbished - the time that construction work disrupts a place, is probably the biggest bug bear.

It has to be the single most unattractive part of considering home and office improvements. The disruption, the challenge to routine, the absolute stonking mess.

But this winter has proved, if we can trust anything with the British weather, it's capable of some frigid snaps which prove evidence of how draughty our homes can be.

So with the added incentive of a couple more months of freezing weather reports.

We took the Q-Bot team up on their offer of seeing one of the robots which appeared to be so much fun. In action (they do an awesome job but they are cool to play with!!).

Real Life Installations

The video on the Q-Bot site probably still looks pristine, but the underfloor underneath house we went to had probably not seen visitors in over 20 years.

The homeowner we spoke to had a very common problem. The house he lives in is in constant use. Home working, a couple of kids around and not really a great deal of spare cash at the moment.

So presented with the problem of one of the most used rooms in the house being frigidly cold.

Rod, the homeowner, did some fairly detailed research. As Q-Bot comes with a raft of accreditations they seemed not just good for service but also for a good fit for price.

Disruption Limited

I've seen whole house retrofits. They are messy. This is different.

The boys from Q-Bot came to Rod's house and had a few challenges. His front bay window was built into the forward slope of the surrounding street.

An unusual set of beams set in contradictory patterns (who knows what was happening on site that day in 1905) meant the guys had to move their entry hole a few boards across.

But only 2 hours into their visit, the carpet was rolled back, the robot was in place. And we all stood well back. One of the reasons the insulation glues onto the underside of the floorboards so effectively, is the same reason you don't want to be breathing the vapour during installation.

And that, I am happy to say is about that.

The Effect

With insulation safely coated on the entire rooms underside. Rod had his carpets down, floorboards returned to their original positions and life carried on as normal that afternoon.

Here's what he had to say about it;