Some advice please - I have no experience of lofts not having had one in any of our previous houses in Africa.

At the moment some of my model railway items including books are being stored in the loft of our present house. All of my rolling stock is stored safely downstairs.

Our loft has insulation in the form of yellow fluffy stuff above the ceilings. The interior of the  loft gets very cold in winter and extremely hot in summer.

How suitable are lofts for storage? I don't want to end up with mouldy books, warped buildings or brittle track.

We have various bits and bats stored in the loft, but, like yours Veronica, we only have the "yellow fluffy stuff" insulation laid between the joists, so our loft gets hot in summer and cold in winter. I would think if you were going to store valuable stuff, (i.e. your railway stuff  ), it would need better insulation. I would certainly be looking to keep the temperature more stable. There are plenty of forumites who have their layout in the loft, so presumably some constructive comments will be made before long.

Hello Veronica, yes, we have that type of loft too. We have lived here 26 years, and some stuff has been up there all that time, but still seems OK. For example, a little while ago we got down some boxes of children's books for our toddler grandson and they were all fine. Some metal objects have gone a bit rusty, but that seems to be the worst of it.

Cheers,

Chris

My layout is in the loft, but I insulated the walls and roof and had it all plastered. It still gets quite warm and all my stock is fine.

As long as it's dry and it's ventilated there shouldn't be any problem with mold.

Personally I wouldn't keep locomotives in a non-converted loft - the temperature swings are a recipe for split gears. You shouldn't have any problems with rolling stock or books.

Steven B.