Insulation in Boldre
Loft, rafter level and warm roof insulation on exposed New Forest properties around Boldre, detailed at the eaves where the heat actually goes.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On an open site like Boldre, depth in the loft is only half the job. The other half is stopping the wind getting into the edges of it, because a layer that measures right at the hatch and is thin, loose or lifted at the eaves will never feel like the depth you paid for.
Three sorts of call come out of the parish. A bedroom on the south west corner of the house that is always the cold one, whatever the heating is doing. A loft where the wool looks fine across the middle and has gone to nothing in the last few feet at the wall. And a converted outbuilding, annexe or roof room where the ceiling follows the slope and there is nowhere to lay a roll at all.
We work across the lanes here and down towards Lymington. The site visit is free, the written itemised quote is free, and if the honest answer is that your loft needs the edges sorted and a cross layer over the joists rather than a new system, that is what the quote will say.
The work
Most lofts here stop a foot short of the wall
Most lofts here stop a foot short of the wall. Mineral wool goes between and over the joists, the top layer crossing the first so the timber stops conducting heat out through the ceiling, and it is carried right out over the wall plate instead of stopping a foot short where it is awkward to reach. Old material that has settled or been compressed under boards is straightened, the gaps are filled and it is laid over. A finished depth of about 270mm is what a cold loft wants to get near the 0.16 U-value expected when a roof is renovated.
Vent trays at the eaves, on nearly every job. Insulating a loft floor makes the space above it colder, and a colder roof space that cannot breathe is where condensation turns up on the underside of the roof. Trays hold the airflow open at the eaves so the ventilation path runs over the top of the insulation rather than through it. With the most exposed elevation out here facing south west, wind and driven rain work at the edges and the openings rather than at the middle of a surface, which is why that detail matters more here than in a sheltered street.
Plenty of the housing out here has rooms in the roof, dormers or a converted outbuilding, and none of it has a loft floor to work on. That is rigid board cut tight between and under the rafters with a vapour control layer behind the plasterboard and a clear ventilation gap kept above, or a multi-layer foil quilt where the head height on a sloping ceiling cannot spare the thickness. Room in roof work is priced by the room, and we plaster it out afterwards ourselves. Single storey rear extensions, garden rooms and the flat roofs over annexes are commonly built cold and left with almost nothing in them; where the covering is being replaced anyway, a warm roof build-up with rigid board above the deck is the sensible time to do it, because it deals with the cold bridge at the joists and does not eat the ceiling height below. Newer houses here have a cavity worth surveying before anyone talks about filling it, and older ones have a solid external wall where the only options are an internal lining on the coldest room or external wall insulation, which is a planning conversation in the National Park. The hatch gets insulated and draught sealed, the tank and pipework get lagging, downlighters get covers, and any storage deck is raised on legs rather than screwed flat onto the wool.
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. Outside is a different matter here, because the New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Boldre and it looks closely at anything that changes how a building reads in the landscape, external wall insulation included; the Authority's interactive property map tells you what applies to a particular address, and Planning Portal guidance on insulation covers the general position. Building control sits with the district council, and regulation 23 of the Building Regulations is the one to know, since renovating more than half of a thermal element brings the whole element up to standard.
Cost
What decides the price of an insulation job
No rate per square metre: the area is the easy part. A semi on one of the lanes with the hatch over the stairs, a cottage where the roof space is a crawl rather than a room, and an annexe with a flat roof over it 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 wool is carried out over the wall plate, and whether vent trays 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. Boldre is half an hour off and we are down that way regularly. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Wind is what takes the value out of a loft here
Houses in this parish sit open to the south west, and the weather comes in off that quarter with nothing much in the way. Wind does not just push on the walls. It gets in under the tiles and at the eaves and moves through the top of a loose mineral wool layer, which the trade calls wind washing.
The wool is still there and still the right depth, but air is passing through the fibres at the edges of the loft, and that is exactly where the ceiling below meets the outside wall. Homeowners describe it as a cold strip round the edge of an upstairs room, or a bedroom in one corner that never behaves like the others, and it gets blamed on the radiator.
The cure is detail rather than depth. The layer is cut and tucked into the awkward corners instead of being pushed roughly towards them, carried out over the wall plate rather than stopping short, and held down where a draught could lift it. Vent trays go in so the airflow the roof needs runs above the insulation instead of through it.
Then the holes are sealed: the hatch, the pipe drops, the cable runs and the downlighters, all of which let warm damp air up and cold air down. On an exposed site that detailing is worth more than another hundred millimetres laid across the middle of the loft, and it is the part a quick job leaves out because nobody standing at the hatch can see it.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Boldre, Pilley, Walhampton, Lymington and the SO41 addresses along the lanes between them, with the New Forest National Park Authority for planning and the district council for 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
Boldre questions we get asked
Do we deal with the Park or the district council?
The New Forest National Park Authority, for Boldre. Anything needing consent goes there rather than to the district office. In practice a cold roof space needs neither, because it is not development and none of it can be seen. The Park's interest begins at the outside face of the building, which is why external wall insulation, dormers and a change of covering are the items to raise first. Eleven listed entries here need consent from the same place.
The upstairs ceilings follow the roof line. What can be done?
The work goes between and under the rafters. With no loft to lay anything in, board goes into the rafter depth, then a second layer runs under the rafters to break the cold line the timber makes, then the lining goes back on. A clear gap has to stay above the insulation, from eaves to ridge, or the felt sweats. It is a room by room job with plasterboard off, so in Boldre it usually accompanies redecoration.
Should the eaves be packed tight to stop the draught?
The opposite, and packing them solid is the commonest thing we undo. Air has to travel from the soffit up to the ridge to carry away the moisture a house produces, and material forced into that corner blocks the route, so the covering sweats and drips on the ceiling. What stops the draught is a tray at the eaves, holding the path open while the quilt runs out behind it. Boldre lofts get plenty of air through that gap.
Our end terrace is colder than the middle ones. Why?
Because an end has an extra exposed wall and a longer perimeter at the top of it. Terraces are 29.9% of Boldre and semis another 24.5%, so most of the village has one warm side or two. The end house does not: it has a gable taking the weather, usually facing south west here, and a run of eaves along it where loft material tends to stop short. That corner is where we start.
Is a 1980s house already done, or worth looking at?
Worth looking at. 42.9% of Boldre was built between 1983 and 2008, with the biggest share in the 1980s, and lofts of that vintage were laid to a depth that has been raised more than once since. They are also the houses where boarding went down early and the material underneath has been squashed flat by storage. Flat material does not work. We lift the boards, restore the depth and put the deck back on battens.
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Cold corner rooms, or a loft you have never looked at?
We will get up there, measure the depth, check the eaves and the airflow, and put it in writing. The visit and the quote are free.