Insulation in Ashley
Loft top-ups, lagging done properly around the tank, cavity checks and sloping ceiling work across Ashley and the New Milton side of BH25, 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.
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In a single storey house the loft sits over every room you use, so it is the one piece of fabric worth doing first. A bungalow loft in Ashley of this age usually has insulation in it from decades ago that has flattened to a fraction of what it should be, and getting the depth back is a day at most.
In Ashley the cold tends to show in a back bedroom, in the winter electricity bill and in a trodden-down loft. A back bedroom that never warms up whatever the heating does. A winter electricity bill that has gone somewhere silly and no obvious reason why. Or a loft somebody has just been into for the first time in years, where the wool is grey, thin and trodden into paths between the tank and the hatch.
None of those needs a sales pitch. We come out, get up there properly, part the insulation and measure the real depth, not the depth it looks from the hatch, check the eaves are still open and see what is going on around the tank. You get photographs of what is up there and an itemised written quote. The site visit costs nothing, and where the loft is genuinely fine we will tell you that and point at the walls or the draughts instead.
The work
Insulate under the tank and January will find it
A whole bungalow footprint, not just the upstairs. Much of Ashley went up in the late 1950s and early 1960s and a lot of it single storey, so the ceiling you are insulating is the lid on the entire house.
Those roofs were mostly cut on site, with purlins and a walkable space underneath, which is why so many of them ended up used for storage. We tease apart what is there, lay new mineral wool, ordinary eco roll, between and over the joists to bring the total to around 270mm, the depth that takes a ceiling to the 0.16 u-value, and cross lay the top layer so no joist is left telegraphing heat straight through the ceiling.
Insulate under the tank and January will find it. Houses of this age nearly always have a cold water tank sitting in the loft. Once the insulation under it comes up to full depth that tank is in a much colder space than it used to be, so it and every pipe serving it get lagged and the lid gets insulated, but the area directly beneath it is deliberately left open so a little warmth still reaches it. Get that wrong and a loft that was fine for forty years freezes in its first cold January. The cylinder in the airing cupboard gets the same treatment, and with close to a quarter of homes in Ashley running on electric and not gas, what the fabric holds in is worth more than it is in town.
The inter-war and 1950s stock was built with a cavity wall, but a narrow one, and some was filled long ago with material that has since settled or got wet. We borescope before we quote: an empty cavity takes blown bead or mineral fibre, a failed fill has to come out first, and a full fill is not always the right call this close to the sea. Bungalows are more than four in ten homes in Ashley and plenty have gained a room in the roof or a dormer built as a warm roof, which is usually the coldest room in the house. Foil faced PIR rigid board goes between and under the rafters with the joints taped, or a multi-layer foil quilt such as TLX where the depth is not there, a vapour control layer on the warm side, and an air gap kept clear above the board. A bungalow has more eaves per square metre of floor than a house does, so the perimeter is where the heat loss hides: vent trays hold the air path open so a full 250mm can be carried right to the wall plate, the hatch is insulated and draught sealed rather than left as a hole in the ceiling, and every downlighter gets a fire rated cover.
How it runs
Ceiling, cylinder, walls and floor: working through an Ashley bungalow
Thomas comes out, has a look in the loft and walks round the outside walls, then prices the job himself. The quote has a line each for the survey, emptying the loft, the insulation and how deep it goes, ventilation, and removing the waste. You have one person to ring from start to finish.
A bungalow has a big loft over every room, and on the fifties and sixties bungalows in Ashley it often holds only a thin layer of old mineral wool. That is where insulation returns the most. Chalet bungalows have rooms in the roof, so the work moves to the eaves voids and the sloping ceilings. We board a walkway, bag the old material, keep the eaves open, and leave the hatch insulated. Wet timber or a blocked vent is photographed and priced, and nothing extra happens without your agreement.
Insulating a loft is not a planning matter and does not need a building control notice, as the Planning Portal spells out. Anything that changes the outside face of the building, external wall insulation or EWI above all, is different, whereas internal wall insulation changes nothing anybody can see. Ashley sits outside the National Park, so planning is a New Forest District Council matter, and there is no conservation area over the housing. Insulation fitted in a home is at present zero rated for VAT.
Cost
Hatches, eaves voids and old wool: pricing insulation here
Insulation in Ashley has no per square metre rate. How the loft and walls are built matters more than their size. Getting in. A hatch in the hall ceiling of a bungalow is easy, and a semi with a loft ladder is easier still. A chalet bungalow, where the eaves voids are reached through small doors in the bedrooms, is slow, kneeling work. Bagging and removing old, flattened wool is an extra line.
Walls. Most post-war houses in Ashley have cavity walls, and many were filled years ago. A borescope shows whether yours is empty, filled or bridged with debris before anyone quotes a fill, and a bridged cavity is dealt with first.
Rooms in the roof. Sloping ceilings in a chalet need insulation between and under the rafters, with a vapour control layer and new plasterboard, which is a bigger job than a loft floor and means the rooms have to be cleared and redecorated afterwards.
The standard. Approved Document L sets what the work should reach, and Approved Document F says the house still needs ventilation once it is tighter.
Ask any other quote how deep the new layer will be, how the eaves will stay ventilated, and whether the tank and pipes are lagged.
If it is urgent
Mould, damp patches or a room you cannot keep warm
A dripping loft, black mould that returns within weeks of cleaning, or a room that never warms up is worth looking at before winter. Do not pile in more insulation first, because a loft that cannot ventilate gets worse.
Keep bathroom and kitchen doors shut while in use and run the extract fans. On the first visit we find out if the cause is missing insulation, poor ventilation or a roof leak. Scheduled insulation work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. It is worth a phone call. Scheduled work runs Mon to Fri, 8am to 6pm, and if we miss you we call back.
Worth knowing
Nearly a quarter of Ashley homes run on electricity
About 23% of households in Ashley heat with electricity, not gas. That changes the maths on insulation more than anything about the building does. Every unit of heat you make with a storage heater or a panel heater is bought at the electricity price, so the heat leaking through a flattened loft costs noticeably more here than it would in a gas heated house two miles away.
The fabric is what decides how much heat you have to buy. The fuel decides what that heat costs you, and on electricity it is the expensive kind.
Storage heaters and heat pumps both change the order of work in Ashley. If you are on storage heaters you are paying for heat overnight and hoping it is still in the house at teatime, so draughts, an unsealed hatch and a thin loft hurt you in a way they do not hurt somebody with a boiler they can just fire up again. And if you are thinking about a heat pump, get the fabric done first.
A heat pump works at a low flow temperature and is only comfortable in a house that holds its heat, so the loft, the walls and the draughtproofing are the groundwork, not the afterthought.
Who you are dealing with
Who insulates your home in Ashley
Insulation work covers Ashley, Bashley, New Milton, Barton on Sea and the BH25 villages on this side of the forest. Ashley is 8.9 miles from our base in Boscombe, and the local authority is New Forest District Council.
Thomas Hannen inspects the loft in person and works out the price, as owner of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, which is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. We hold a verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Visiting costs nothing, and the written quote comes itemised at no charge. Before you book a visit in Ashley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Ashley?
Most repairs in Ashley need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.
| Question | In Ashley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest District Council is the planning authority for Ashley. The National Park boundary runs close by, and the Park's property map shows which side an address falls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Ashley, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Ashley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Ashley. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in Ashley
Our bungalow is all electric. Where does insulating pay back first?
On electricity it is worth more, not less. Around 23.1% of households in Ashley heat with electricity rather than a gas main, so every unit of warmth that goes through the ceiling has to be bought back through the meter. A bungalow makes it worse again, because the whole floor plan sits directly under the roof instead of half of it sitting under a heated bedroom. The loft is the first thing we would put right here.
Why does a bungalow lose more through the ceiling?
Because in a bungalow the ceiling is the whole house. 41.8% of the dwellings in Ashley are bungalows, so for most people here every room sits under the loft: the same floor area as a two storey house but roughly twice the roof. There is also far more edge. More hip, more verge and a longer run of eaves per household, and the edges are where wind gets under whatever is laid and where material stops short.
The south west side of the house is always draughtier. Why?
That elevation is the one doing the work. The most exposed wall in Ashley faces south west, and weather finds edges and openings long before it finds the middle of a surface. In a loft that means air pushing in over the wall plate on that side, lifting loose fibre off the joists and leaving a bare strip you cannot see from the hatch. We fit rigid stops and eaves trays along that run first, then lay the depth back across it.
Our rear extension has a flat roof. Can that be insulated?
It can, but it is the one place where doing it badly causes rot. A cold flat roof needs air moving above the insulation, and filling the void tight to the deck stops that and wets the joists. So either we keep a clear ventilated gap, or the insulation goes over the deck when the covering is next replaced. With 49.6% of Ashley built between 1945 and 1982, flat roofed rear additions are common, and usually the coldest room in the house.
Do we need to be out of the house for this?
There is no need. The work is in the roof space and the only time we are in your rooms is walking the ladder and the bags through. Sheets go down on the route, the hatch stays closed between loads so fibre stays where it belongs, and if the hatch is in a bedroom that room is cleared and finished first. You can be at work. We need the access and somewhere to stand the van.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Ashley
Nearby places we also cover for insulation, with straight-line distances from Ashley, and the other trades we offer in Ashley itself.
Insulation nearby
Our other trades in Ashley
Insulation guides
Part L: do you have to insulate when you re-roof? Black mould on walls: what causes it and what stops it PIR board vs mineral wool: which insulation?Everything we do in New Milton Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a price for insulating your Ashley home
Tell us the address and what the house feels like in January. We will get in the loft, measure the real depth and put an itemised price in writing. No charge and no obligation.