ᐅ Affordable Attic Conversion – How to Insulate and What to Consider?

An old farmhouse attic is planned to be insulated and converted. Currently, horizontal battens are nailed on the vertical wooden beams from the outside, and the roof tiles rest directly on these battens.

To insulate properly and professionally, the entire roof would need to be uncovered and rebuilt, but this is not an option due to cost constraints.

Since the roof itself appears to be watertight, I have the following question:
If I place insulating material (mineral wool or similar) between the vertical wooden beams and then screw or nail wooden panels to the beams from the inside, what could potentially happen in the worst case?
The insulation can’t blow away since the battens and roof tiles are fixed on the outside.

You mean insulation between rafters; try searching for that on Google.
It is, among other things, state-of-the-art technology and generally feasible for DIY.
In our case, the roof structure was as follows:

24 cm (9.5 inches) rafters or 24 cm (9.5 inches) insulation
Membrane (sealed/bonded)
Counter battens
Gypsum board

No insulation above the rafters ("over-rafter insulation") was necessary. For older and slimmer rafters, you might want to look into insulation below the rafters.

A seal still needs to be applied over the insulation, which requires the roof to be covered. Anything else is complete nonsense.

Lumpi_LE schrieb:

A seal still needs to be applied over the insulation wool, which requires the roof to be uncovered. Anything else is simply nonsense.

Use spacers between the battens (on which the roof tiles rest) and then attach the appropriate membrane (there are various suppliers) glued between the rafters.
The roof does not need to be removed. As I wrote, this is also professional and correct.

Godot_x schrieb:

Currently, there is a horizontal cross batten nailed to the vertical wooden beams on the outside, directly supporting the roof tiles.

It seems you are referring to rafters and battens. While practical skills are obviously more important than terminology when renovating, your lack of technical knowledge suggests that you might benefit from more than just occasional advice from an online forum.

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Osnabruecker schrieb:

You mean insulation between rafters, try Googling it.
It is part of current building standards and generally feasible for DIY.

It was installed in my parents’ house 20 years ago. No need to strip the roof covering. It has worked without issues since then and, contrary to @Lumpi_LE’s assumption, it has clearly been professionally proven many times over the years.

11ant schrieb:

It seems to me that your lack of expertise calls for more than just a bit of individual question clarification from an online forum as support.

I fully agree with that.