Insulation in Beacon Hill
Loft top-ups, roof rooms and wall insulation on the seventies and eighties housing around Beacon Hill, ventilated properly and quoted in writing.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most lofts in Beacon Hill already have something in them, so the usual job here is a top-up rather than a fresh start. A second layer of mineral wool goes over the joists rather than between them, bringing the depth to about 250mm, and that is the cheapest heat you will ever keep in a house of this age.
Three things get us called out on this estate. A bungalow where the back bedroom never warms up, because the whole floor plan sits under one roof and the loft is the biggest cold surface in the house. A loft that was boarded out for storage years ago, with the original wool squashed flat underneath the boards and doing very little. And a converted roof space or garage that costs a fortune to heat because the insulation went in around whatever was there at the time.
All three are ordinary work for us. We are twenty minutes up the A350, the site visit is free, and so is the written itemised quote. If your loft only needs a cross layer and a sealed hatch, that is what the quote will say.
The work
You can only reach the last few inches from outside
Topping up a seventies loft. Most of Beacon Hill went up in the seventies and early eighties, when one layer of roll laid between the joists was the whole specification. Four decades on it has settled, been knelt on and pulled aside for cables. We do not usually take it out. We straighten what is there, fill the gaps at the ends of the runs, and lay a fresh layer across the joists at right angles, between and over, so the timber stops acting as a cold bridge. A quarter of the homes here are bungalows with nowhere else for the Christmas boxes, so a lot of these lofts have chipboard screwed straight to the joists. Insulation under a board is insulation you have paid for and cannot use: we lift the boarding, bring the depth up underneath, then raise the deck back on loft legs so the wool sits full and loose below it.
Roofs of this age are trussed, which means a lattice of timber to work around and eaves so shallow you can reach the last few inches only from the outside. Wool stuffed hard into that gap blocks the airflow, and a freshly insulated loft floor is colder above than it was before, which is exactly when condensation starts. Vent trays go in at the eaves, the airflow stays open, and any downlighter in the ceiling below gets a cover rather than a heap of wool. Where the roof space is already a room, or a garage has become one, there is no loft floor to work on: that is rigid board between and under the rafters with a vapour control layer and the ventilation gap kept clear above, or a multi-layer foil system where head height is already tight. Then an insulated, draught sealed hatch, and lagging on the tank and pipework.
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. Nothing you do inside a loft needs planning permission, and with no conservation area over Beacon Hill and nothing listed in it, work to the outside of the walls is normally permitted development too, which is not something every village round here can say; Planning Portal guidance on insulation sets out where that line falls. Building control is the part that does bite: under the Building Regulations, regulation 23 means renovating more than half of a thermal element brings the whole element up to standard. Dorset Council for both, and we check the address anyway.
Cost
What decides the price of an insulation job
No rate per square metre: the area is the easy part. A bungalow with the hatch in the hall ceiling, a detached house with a boarded loft full of storage, and a converted roof room with no loft floor at all are three different surveys before any material is ordered. 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 going down, whether the boarding is being raised or just refitted, and whether the eaves are being kept clear.
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. Beacon Hill is twenty minutes away, so usually the same day or the next. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Nothing here is listed, and that widens the choice
Beacon Hill has no conservation area over it and no listed buildings in it. That sounds like a technicality until you price a wall. On the older villages a few miles north, anything that changes how an elevation looks runs into consent before it runs into a builder, and external wall insulation changes how an elevation looks more than almost anything else you can do to a house.
Here that argument does not start. The render, the board thickness and the finish are your decision, subject to the ordinary rules on how far out from the wall you can build and what happens at the boundary.
What we would actually advise is to spend the money in order. The loft first, because it is the cheapest heat saved per pound and it is done in a day. Then the draughts, the hatch and the service holes, which cost very little and are felt straight away.
Cavity wall insulation next if the survey finds an unfilled cavity, and on stock of this age a fair number were partly filled when they were built, so it is worth checking rather than paying twice. External wall insulation last, because it is the biggest job and the one that only makes sense once everything above it is done. Free rein is useful. It is not a reason to start at the expensive end.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Beacon Hill, Upton, Lytchett Matravers, Corfe Mullen and the BH16 addresses either side of the A350, with Dorset Council for planning and building control. Send the postcode if you want to be sure. 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
Beacon Hill questions we get asked
We are in the Green Belt. Does that block insulation?
It does not. Green Belt policy is about new building on open land, so it bites on an extension, an outbuilding or a garden room and has nothing to say about work inside an existing roof. Beacon Hill has no conservation area and no listed entries either, so there is no control on the appearance of the house. Dorset Council is the authority. The only rules touching a loft top up are the building regulations on ventilation.
What happens to the water cistern once the loft is colder?
It has to be dealt with in the same visit or it freezes. Raising the depth makes the roof space colder, which is the point, and a cistern that used to sit in warmed air no longer does. So it gets a jacket, the pipes in and out of it get lagged, and the patch of ceiling directly beneath is deliberately left thin so a little warmth still reaches it. In Beacon Hill lofts it usually sits in the coldest corner.
How many days will you be at the house?
For a straightforward top up, one, and often part of one. What moves it is the hatch, how much old material has to come out and whether anything up there needs fixing before the depth goes on. Beacon Hill is mostly post war stock, and roofs of that age are simpler to move around in than a cut roof with purlins and a chimney through the middle. The number of days goes on the written quote.
Our west facing room stays cold whatever the heating does. Why?
Because that wall is the one working. The most exposed elevation at Beacon Hill faces south west and the ground here stays naturally wet, so a wall on that side spends winter damp on its outer face, and a damp wall carries heat away faster than a dry one. Insulating the ceiling above it will not fix a wall. We check the loft over that room for a bare perimeter first, then talk about the wall separately.
We have downlights in the ceiling below. Does that stop it?
It changes the job rather than stopping it. Material laid over a recessed light traps the heat it makes, so every fitting needs a cover or a clear gap around it, and the covers have to be the right sort or the fitting cooks anyway. On ceilings of this age the cable is often stapled along the joist as well, and burying cable under insulation is its own consideration. We count the fittings and they get their own line.
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Want to know what your loft actually needs?
We will get up there, look at the depth, the eaves and the ventilation, and put it in writing. The visit and the quote are free.