Insulation in Bearwood
Loft top-ups, roof rooms and converted garages across the Bearwood estates, ventilated properly and priced in writing before anything starts.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Almost every house in Bearwood was built with loft insulation already in it, to the standard of the day, and almost none of it has been touched since. The job here is nearly always adding a layer over what is there, not clearing a loft out and starting again.
Tired insulation on the Bearwood estate shows first in the room over the garage, in the loft and in quick conversions. An upstairs room that will not hold heat overnight, usually the one over the garage or at the end of a terrace. A loft they have just been into for the first time in years, where the wool has flattened, slumped between the trusses and left bare plasterboard showing in the corners. And a converted garage or roof room that was finished quickly and is now the coldest part of the house.
None of it is complicated work and none of it takes long. We are ten minutes away, the site visit is free, and the written itemised quote is free with it. If all your loft needs is a cross layer and a sealed hatch, we will tell you that and not sell you a system.
The work
An extra full elevation, on every end of terrace
The top-up over the original layer. Bearwood is largely eighties housing, and an eighties loft was built with one layer of mineral wool laid between the joists and nothing over them.
It is thinner than anything specified now, it has settled under its own weight, and the joists themselves are a cold bridge running across the whole ceiling. We straighten and repair what is down, close the gaps at the ends of the runs, then lay a fresh layer across the joists at right angles, between and over, to a finished depth of roughly 270mm. Nothing needs to come out unless it is wet, mouldy or full of rodent damage, and you get a photograph either way.
An extra full elevation, on every end of terrace. Nearly three in ten homes in Bearwood are terraced, and the ones that feel the cold are the end of terrace and the linked houses with a room over the garage. The end house has an extra full elevation exposed, and the room over a garage has a cold, unheated space beneath its floor as well as a roof above it. Both are worth doing properly, not just a top-up in the loft: the floor void over the garage takes rigid board or wool between the joists from below, and the garage ceiling gets a vapour control layer before it is boarded back.
Where a garage has become a room the walls are often a single skin of block with a thin cavity, so the fix is an internal lining, insulated board or PIR between battens, taped and skimmed. Where the roof space has become a room it is rigid board between and under the rafters with the ventilation gap kept clear above, or a multi-layer foil quilt where a sloping ceiling is already finished, and that is priced by the room, not by the loft. Most of these lofts have chipboard down for storage, screwed straight onto the joists and squashing the wool flat: we lift it, lay the depth underneath, and raise the deck back up on legs. The hatch gets a board and a draught seal, because a bare hatch is a hole in everything you have just laid. The tank and pipework get lagging, since the loft is colder after the job, and downlighters get covers instead of a heap of wool. Houses of this age were usually built with some cavity insulation already in place, partial fill batts against the inner leaf, so a survey comes before anyone talks about injecting more.
How it runs
Insulating an eighties house: roof, garage room and walls
Thomas surveys the house himself, starting where the cold is. In an eighties house that usually means a loft with a thin original layer, a bedroom over an integral garage, and cavity walls that may already have partial fill. His quote gives the survey, clearing, each material with its depth, ventilation and disposal a line apiece.
On a Bearwood job each part follows on from the last. The route to the hatch is sheeted and old material is bagged in the loft before it is carried down. Anything we remove goes with us. Damp timber, cables buried in old insulation or an extractor fan blowing into the loft are photographed and priced for you before anything is added.
Nothing inside a loft needs planning permission, and with no conservation area over Bearwood, insulating the outside of a wall is normally permitted development too. The council's list of conservation areas is public, and Planning Portal guidance on insulation covers the rest. There are three listed entries nearby, so we check the address. Building control matters more: regulation 23 means a wall or roof that is mostly renovated has to reach the current standard throughout. BCP Council covers both.
Cost
Rooms over garages take longer than anything else in the house
We do not price insulation by the square metre. The awkward parts decide the time. Where the cold is. A bedroom over an integral garage loses heat through its floor, and insulating that means working from the garage ceiling. A loft is quicker. Walls are a separate survey.
The hatch and the loft. A mid terrace with a small drop-down hatch over the stairs, a link house with a room and a loft over the garage, and a detached house boarded out for storage are three different mornings before any mineral wool is ordered.
Old material. Loft insulation laid when these houses were built is thin by today's standard, and if it is compressed or damp it is bagged and removed first.
Ventilation. Eaves vents must stay clear, and a breathable membrane or extra vents may be needed to stop condensation in a colder loft.
Cavity walls. Many houses of this age had partial fill built in, which usually rules out injecting more. A borescope settles it.
The target. The U-value to aim for comes from Approved Document L.
Ask anyone else quoting what depth they will lay, whether the floor over the garage is included, and whether the hatch will be sealed and insulated.
If it is urgent
A cold bedroom over the garage, or mould that returns
Insulation rarely brings a true emergency, but black mould that keeps returning, a loft that drips, or a room you cannot heat in a cold spell needs looking at. Ring rather than filling in a form, and tell us if the cold room sits over a garage.
The first visit works out whether it is missing insulation, poor ventilation or a leak, and makes anything wet or electrical safe. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Call if it will not wait. Scheduled work runs Mon to Fri, 8am to 6pm, and if we miss you we call back.
Worth knowing
Your house was insulated once, in the eighties, and that is the problem
Bearwood is unusual in how tightly the housing is grouped in age. The bulk of it went up in the eighties, which was late enough that the builders put insulation in as standard and early enough that the standard was a fraction of today's. So very few lofts here are bare, and very few are anywhere near where they should be.
Forty years of settling has taken depth out of the layer, anyone who has been up for a cable or an aerial has left a trench through it, and the builders routinely pushed the wool hard into the eaves, which is the one place it does more harm than good, because it blocks the airflow the roof space needs.
What follows is a decision rather than a job. If the existing layer is dry and in one piece, leave it and lay over it, because removing sound material is money spent to end up where you started. If it is damp, black underneath or has been used as a nest, it comes out, gets bagged and goes with us, and that is a cost you should see on the quote as its own line rather than buried.
Either way the eaves get opened back up with vent trays before the new depth goes down, and the hatch gets sealed the same day. If a neighbour on your row has recently had theirs done, your house is the same age and the same build, and what they were told will very likely apply to you too.
Who you are dealing with
Send the postcode if you are not sure we cover you
Bearwood is a 5 mile drive from Boscombe, where our base is, and we insulate homes here and in Merley, Longham, West Parley, Kinson and Wallisdown. BCP Council handles planning and building control, and if you are unsure whether we cover you, send the postcode.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. The survey is done in person by the owner, Thomas Hannen, who also prices the job. On Checkatrade, a verified customer rated us 10 out of 10. We make no charge for the survey visit or the itemised quote in writing. Before you book a visit in Bearwood, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Bearwood?
Most repairs in Bearwood 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 Bearwood |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Bearwood. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Bearwood, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Bearwood. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Bearwood. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in Bearwood
There are no old houses in Bearwood. Does that help?
Yes, having no old houses makes insulation work in Bearwood predictable. Not one dwelling in Bearwood was built before 1919 and 34.6% of the place went up in the 1980s, so we are nearly always in a trussed roof with felt beneath the tiles and joists at a regular spacing.
No lath and plaster ceiling to put a foot through, no rubble filled wall plate, no chimney in the middle. What is dated is the depth, which was set by the standards of the day.
Our loft hatch is small and there is no ladder. Problem?
This is the commonest hold up on a Bearwood estate and it is solvable. Hatches from the 1980s are small, unlined and often tucked into a landing corner with no room to swing a ladder. We bring our own, and the material goes up compressed in bags, not as open rolls, which will not turn through a tight opening. If it is too narrow even for that, enlarging it between the joists gets its own line.
Why can I see the joists as lines on the ceiling?
That pattern is the frame of the roof printing through. Plaster over a joist is colder in insulation terms than plaster between joists, so airborne dust settles on those lines first, and after a few winters you can read the timber from the landing. It tells you the material up there sits between the joists and nothing crosses them. A layer laid at right angles over the top is what makes the lines go away.
Which is worth doing first, the ceiling or the walls?
The ceiling, every time: heat leaves upward, and the loft is the one part of the fabric you can reach without touching the finish of a room or the face of the building. In Bearwood, where 37.0% of the housing dates from 1983 to 2008, the walls of that period were built as cavities, so the wall question is about what is already in them rather than whether to add. The ceiling answer never changes.
How firm is the quote?
It is written after Thomas has seen the loft, never guessed over the phone. He measures it and itemises it so the material, the depth, the hatch and any extras sit as separate lines. Anything extra found once work starts is photographed and priced before it goes further. The visit and the sheet cost you nothing.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Bearwood
Nearby places we also cover for insulation, with straight-line distances from Bearwood, and the other trades we offer in Bearwood itself.
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Our other trades in Bearwood
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 Kinson Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Not sure what is already in your loft?
We will get up there, measure what is down, look at the eaves and the hatch, and put the options in writing. The visit and the quote are free.