Insulation in Bere Regis
Loft, rafter level and wall insulation on village houses, cottages and conversions around Bere Regis, with the ventilation sorted at the same time.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
The first question in Bere Regis is not which material to use, it is what shape the roof space is. A modern loft you can stand in takes a straightforward top-up in a morning. An old hand cut roof, a crawl under a low collar or a room already up in the rafters is a different job with different materials, and the survey is what tells the two apart.
Three things bring people to ring us out here. A room that will not hold heat, which matters more when the heating is oil or electric than when it is gas. A loft that runs with damp on the underside of the roof on a cold morning. And a cottage or a conversion where the ceilings follow the roof line and there is no loft floor to lay anything on at all.
We work across the village and the lanes around it. The site visit is free, the written itemised quote is free, and if what you need is a cross layer over the joists and a sealed hatch rather than a system with a brand name, that is what the quote will say.
The work
Under thatch, the question changes
The top-up, and the roofs that are not trussed. Mineral wool, ordinary eco roll, laid between and over the joists, the second layer running across the first so the timber stops conducting heat straight through the ceiling, finished at roughly 250 to 270mm, which takes a ceiling close to the 0.16 u-value expected when a thermal element is renovated. Where the old material has settled or been compressed under boarding we repair the gaps rather than assume the depth is there, and anything wet is bagged and leaves with us. The parish has more than forty listed entries, and a roof cut by hand on site is nothing like a modern trussed one: the joists are not at a regular spacing, so rolls get cut in rather than run out, there are purlins and collars to work around, and the eaves are often too low to reach from inside. On a thatched roof the question changes again, because the thatch is already a thick thermal layer and the space beneath it has to stay dry and ventilated, so we look before we lay anything.
Where a sloping ceiling follows the rafters, in a cottage bedroom or a room in the roof over a converted outbuilding, the insulation goes at rafter level rather than on a floor. That is rigid PIR board between and under the rafters with a vapour control layer and a clear gap above, or a multi-layer foil quilt such as TLX where the head height cannot afford the thickness. A dormer on the back of a converted roof is built as a warm roof, cheeks and flat top together. An older village house often has no cavity wall at all, so the choice is internal wall insulation, which costs a little floor area, or external wall insulation, EWI on a quote, which changes how the building looks. On a solid wall we would rather sort the rainwater, the pointing and the loft first and then talk about the walls. Out here a header tank and a run of pipes in the loft are common, and the space gets colder once the floor below is insulated, so lagging is part of the job. The hatch gets a board and a draught seal, and downlighters get covers.
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. What does need care is the listing: there are more than forty listed entries in the parish, and on a listed building even internal work such as lining a wall can need listed building consent, so we check the address before we quote it. On everything else insulation is normally permitted development, which Planning Portal guidance on insulation sets out. Building control is the other one to know about, because regulation 23 of the Building Regulations means renovating more than half of a thermal element brings the whole element up to standard. Dorset Council for both.
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, a cottage where the roof space is a crawl under a low collar, and an outbuilding converted into a room are three different jobs 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 low eaves are being reached at all, and whether the tank and the pipework are in the price.
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. Bere Regis is half an hour out, so usually a day or two. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Off the gas main, the fabric is worth more
A good number of homes in and around Bere Regis are not on the gas main. They are heated by oil delivered to a tank in the garden, or by electricity, and that changes the sums in a way most insulation advice ignores. Insulation does not save you energy, it saves you buying heat, and what heat costs depends entirely on what you burn.
The same loft top-up in a village house on oil and a town house on gas keeps exactly the same warmth in, but it is not worth the same to the two owners. Off the mains, the fabric is the part of the house doing the most work for you, and the order of jobs shifts accordingly.
In practice that means three things. Do the roof first and do it to full depth, because it is the cheapest heat you can keep and the loft is where the money leaks. Then chase the draughts, the hatch, the service holes and the gaps around the pipework, which cost very little and are felt the same evening. Then look at the walls, and get advice before boarding out a solid one.
If a heat pump is anywhere in your thinking, do the fabric first rather than after, because the size of the unit and the temperature it has to run at are both set by the heat loss of the building. Insulation of this kind counts as an energy saving material, which affects how VAT is applied to the work; HMRC VAT Notice 708/6 sets out the current position and your written quote will reflect it.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Bere Regis, Winterborne Kingston, Milborne St Andrew, Wool and the BH20 addresses out towards Briantspuddle, 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
Bere Regis questions we get asked
How do we find out if our house is listed?
The list is public and Dorset Council holds it. Bere Regis carries 43 listed entries, the parish church of St John the Baptist among them, and the rest sit mostly in the older streets. There is no conservation area over the village, so a house that is not on the list has no control on its appearance at all. Worth settling early, because a listing takes in the inside and changes what can be done to a slope.
Should we insulate before replacing the oil boiler?
Do the ceiling first. 14.2% of households in Bere Regis run on oil and another 10.8% on electricity, so a good part of the village buys heat off the gas main. Sizing new plant to a leaky building means buying something bigger and then running it harder for the life of it. Put the fabric right and the same house needs less. It is also work that happens without the heating being off for a day.
We want the loft as a bedroom. What is the catch?
Nutrient neutrality, once it becomes overnight accommodation. Bere Regis drains into the Poole Harbour catchment and the rule engages where a scheme adds somewhere to sleep, so a conversion is caught and a straight insulation job is not. Radon is the other one: this is an affected area at the low end of the range with no protective measures required, but building control will ask on a conversion. Both are settled on paper before anyone starts.
You are fifteen miles away. Do you actually come out?
We do, and the distance shapes how. Thomas comes once, looks at the whole roof space rather than the one thing you rang about, and writes the job up in full. For a village this far west a second van for a forgotten cistern jacket is a wasted morning for both of us. If more than one thing needs attention, put all of it in front of him on the same visit and it goes on one sheet.
Can the ground floor be done from underneath?
Where there is a void and a way into it, yes. A suspended timber floor sits over a ventilated space and the material goes between the joists on netting or clips so air can still move beneath it. The ground around Bere Regis is freely draining, which usually means that void is dry enough to work in. What we will not do is block the air bricks to stop a draught, because that rots a floor.
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Want to know what your roof space actually needs?
We will get up there, look at the depth, the eaves and the timbers, and put the options in writing. The visit and the quote are free.