Insulation in Alderholt
Loft top-ups, boarded storage put back properly, cavity checks and wall insulation across Alderholt and the SP6 lanes, priced in writing after a free survey.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
A top-up over what is already there usually beats a strip out and a fresh start in Alderholt. There is nearly always something in the loft already. What matters is whether it is deep enough to be doing any work, and in most houses here it is not.
People ring us here for three reasons. The heating runs all evening and the upstairs still feels cold. The loft was boarded for storage years ago and whatever is under those boards has been squashed flat ever since. Or somebody has been up for the Christmas decorations, seen water sitting on the underside of the felt, and wants to know whether that is the roof or the insulation.
All three are worth a proper look rather than a guess from the doorstep. We come out, get into the loft with a tape and a torch, measure what depth is genuinely there once it is teased apart, check the eaves are still clear, and photograph it so you see what we saw. Then you get an itemised written quote. The site visit and the quote are both free, and if the honest answer is that your loft is fine, that is what we will tell you.
The work
Boarded lofts are the commonest thing we find here
Topping up an existing loft. The biggest slice of Alderholt went up in the 1980s, on trussed rafters with a thin layer of mineral wool between the joists and nothing over the top. It has settled since, and every joist running through it is a cold bridge. We lay a fresh roll across the joists at right angles to what is there, to a total depth of around 270mm, which is what gets a ceiling to the 0.16 U-value Approved Document L asks of a renovated thermal element. A three bedroom detached house is usually a morning.
Boarded lofts, and getting the storage back. Plenty of houses on the village estates have chipboard screwed straight to the joists with the wool crushed underneath it, and it is the single most common thing we find here. Boarding on its own is not the problem, the depth under it is. We lift the boards, raise the deck on loft legs so the full depth can breathe underneath, and screw the boarding back down. You keep the storage and stop paying for a loft that only works in the corners.
Converted lofts, dormers and the bedroom over an attached garage are the coldest rooms in most Alderholt houses, because the insulation stops where the flat ceiling stops. Between and under the rafters that is foil faced PIR board, cut tight and taped, with a clear ventilation gap kept above it, and a multi-layer foil quilt where the rafter depth is not there to lose. Houses from the 1980s onwards have a cavity and a fair few were filled when they were built, so we borescope before anyone quotes: a small hole, a look inside, and you are told what is in there and what condition it is in. An empty cavity takes blown bead or mineral fibre. The older cottages in the village are solid walled, where the choice is an internal lining or external wall insulation, and those are very different jobs. Suspended timber floors can be insulated between the joists from below where there is a crawl space, with the air bricks left clear. Then the things that are cheap while we are up there anyway: an insulated and draught sealed hatch, lagging on the tank and the pipework above the new depth, fire rated covers over any downlighter, and vent trays at the eaves.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised: survey, clearing, material and depth, ventilation and disposal on separate lines. Loft work needs no planning application and no building control notice, which is what the Planning Portal sets out for insulation. That changes once you insulate at rafter level as part of a conversion, or clad the outside of a solid wall, because the second one alters how the house looks from the lane. Dorset Council is the authority here and it publishes what needs listed building consent, but Alderholt has no conservation area and no listed entries at all, so for almost every address in the village there is nothing to apply for. Insulation in a home is currently zero rated for VAT, so it never appears on your quote.
Cost
What decides the price of an insulation job
No rate per square metre: the area is the easy part. A 1980s detached with the hatch on the landing, a bungalow with a small hatch in the corner of a back bedroom, and an old cottage where the only way up is through a wardrobe are three different mornings before a single roll is opened. Old material that has to come out and be bagged is a cost of its own. Approved Document L sets what the work must reach. Ask what depth is actually going down, whether the old material comes out or is covered over, and whether the hatch and the pipework are in.
If it is urgent
Damp, condensation or a room you cannot heat
Ring rather than use the form. A dripping loft, black mould that comes back faster than you can wash it off, or a room that will not hold heat gets looked at quickly, and the first visit works out whether it is insulation, ventilation or both. Alderholt is about half an hour from us, so that is days rather than weeks. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
About a fifth of Alderholt has solid walls, and none of it is listed
Roughly 23% of the housing here predates 1919, which is high for a village this size. Those cottages have no cavity to fill. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not looked. What they do have is a wall that was built to let moisture move through it and dry out again, so the wrong lining on the inside traps damp behind it and you get mould in the corners of a room that used to be merely cold.
The useful part is that Alderholt has no conservation area and nothing on the list, so unlike the estate villages up on the chalk you are not asking permission to change how a wall looks. Both routes are genuinely open to you. External wall insulation keeps the room size and moves the dew point outside the wall, but it changes the face of the building and needs the eaves, sills and rainwater goods thought about first.
An internal lining is cheaper and can be done a room at a time, but it costs you a little floor space and every reveal, joist end and internal wall junction has to be detailed or you have simply moved the cold bridge. We will walk the outside with you and say which one your house actually suits, including when the answer is to spend the money on the loft instead.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Alderholt, Sandleheath, Fordingbridge, Cranborne and the SP6 villages either side of the county line. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Alderholt questions we get asked
Nothing in Alderholt is listed. Does that make this simpler?
It removes one layer of it. There is no conservation area over Alderholt and no listed entries in the village, so nothing about the appearance of your roof or your walls is controlled. Loft work sits inside the building and never touches planning anyway. Where the difference shows is external wall insulation, which changes the face of a house: in plenty of villages round here that needs consent, and in Alderholt it does not. Building Regulations still govern how the work is done.
Why do quotes vary so much between neighbouring houses here?
Because Alderholt is two building stocks sitting side by side. 22.7% of the dwellings went up before 1919 and 34.3% between 1983 and 2008, with the biggest single slice in the 1980s. A pre-1919 loft means irregular joists, no felt, a chimney breast in the middle of the space and a lath and plaster ceiling that will not carry weight. An eighties loft is trussed and regular. Thomas walks both before pricing rather than working off a floor area.
We want a loft conversion. Does nutrient neutrality apply here?
It can, and it is worth knowing before you draw anything. Alderholt sits in the River Avon catchment, and the rule only engages where a scheme creates overnight accommodation. Insulating an existing loft adds no bedroom, so it does not come into it. Turning that loft into a room someone sleeps in does, and that is a matter to settle with Dorset Council on paper before materials are ordered. If you want warmth rather than a bedroom, the question never arises.
What does the written quote actually set out?
Every part of the job as its own line: the area being covered, the depth going in, whether old material stays or goes, the hatch, the cistern and its pipework, the eaves, and any boards lifted and relaid. Thomas measures it on the visit and writes it himself. The visit and the written quote are free, and you keep the sheet whether or not you go ahead. VAT is charged, because this is a limited company.
If we cannot do it all, what comes first?
The ceiling over the rooms you actually live in, then the hatch, then the eaves. Houses in Alderholt run from pre-war cottages to estate builds and the detail differs between them, but the order does not. The hatch is a hole in the layer you have just paid for, so it gets a seal and a piece of board of its own. The eaves are where wind strips the edge of whatever is laid. Each stage stands alone.
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Get a price for insulating your Alderholt home
Tell us the address and what the house does in winter. We will get in the loft, measure what is genuinely there, and put an itemised price in writing. No charge and no obligation.