Insulation in Canford Cliffs
Lofts, rooms in the roof, dormers and top floor flats, surveyed first and priced line by line.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Insulating a home in Canford Cliffs usually falls into two very different jobs: a large detached house with rooms in the roof, or a top floor flat in a block where the roof is not yours. We survey first, then price the loft, the sloping ceilings and the walls as separate lines.
The reasons a Canford Cliffs home needs insulating tend to be these. A top floor flat that is cold all winter and stifling in August, with nothing but a thin concrete or timber deck between the ceiling and the roof covering. A big house where the bedrooms up in the roof never warm up, however long the heating runs. Or a loft with an old, flattened layer between the joists and a draught coming down round the hatch.
Thomas comes out to Canford Cliffs, goes up into whatever roof space there is, looks at the walls, and tells you which part of the building is losing the most heat. If the honest answer is that the loft is fine and the money belongs on a sloping ceiling or a dormer, that is what the quote will say.
The work
Rooms in the roof, dormers, walls and big roof spaces
The loft over the main house. Where there is an open roof space the job is straightforward: clear or straighten what is up there, fill the gaps at the edges, then lay eco roll or mineral wool between and over the joists, the top layer running across the first, to about 270mm finished.
That is the depth a U-value of 0.16 calls for, and it is more than most lofts built in the seventies and eighties ever got. The hatch is insulated and draught stripped, the tank and pipework are lagged, and any downlighter poking through the ceiling gets a cover so the insulation does not sit on it. If you want the loft for storage, raised boarding goes over the top so the insulation is not compressed. There is more on this on our loft insulation in Canford Cliffs page.
Rooms in the roof and sloping ceilings. Many of the larger houses in Canford Cliffs have bedrooms built into the roof, with dormers, knee walls and sloping ceilings. There is no loft floor to lay rolls on, so the insulation goes at rafter level: rigid PIR board, Celotex or similar, cut tight between the rafters with a clear ventilation gap above it, then a second layer under the rafters with a taped vapour control layer before the plasterboard. Where there is no depth to spare, a multi-layer foil quilt such as TLX earns its place. The dormer cheeks, the little flat roof over each dormer and the knee wall voids are where the heat really goes, so we open those up rather than just doing the easy slopes.
Walls. Canford Cliffs houses from the seventies onward were built with a cavity, and some had partial insulation put in when they were new. We check with a borescope before recommending cavity fill, because on the cliff top the seaward wall takes a lot of wind-driven rain and not every wall is suitable. Solid walls on the older villas need internal or external wall insulation instead, and outside that is a planning question here. The detail is on our wall insulation page.
When we would say no. If a loft already has a good depth that has simply settled, topping it up is cheap, and ripping it out is a waste. And we will not pack a roof space tight where the eaves have no ventilation, because that trades a cold room for condensation and damp timbers.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One person to ring from the first visit to the last. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: the survey, clearing what is there, the material and its depth, ventilation works and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing in a Canford Cliffs house is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Insulating a loft or lining an inside wall needs no planning permission, as the Planning Portal guidance on insulation explains, but it does come under building control, and regulation 23 means that renovating more than half of a roof or wall brings the whole of it up to the current standard. External wall insulation changes how a house looks, and parts of Canford Cliffs are in a conservation area, so the council keeps the list before anything goes on the outside.
Cost
What decides the price of an insulation job
No rate per square metre, because the area is the easy part and the awkward part is everything around it.
Getting to it. A top floor flat in a seventies block, a detached house with three rooms in the roof and a dormer on each slope, and a bungalow with a wide open loft all price completely differently. A loft hatch you can stand a ladder under is one job, a crawl space or a room in the roof is another. Where boarding has to come up and go back, that is time before any material is laid.
What is already up there. Old material that has to come out, and be bagged and taken away, is a cost before anything new goes down. So is anything stored in the loft that has to be moved and put back.
Ventilation and the awkward edges. Eaves that must stay clear, downlighters that need covers, a tank and pipework that still need lagging, and getting depth right into the corners rather than just across the middle. Approved Document L sets what the work is expected to reach.
Comparing quotes? Ask what depth is actually being laid, whether the old material is being removed or covered, whether the eaves are being kept clear, and whether the hatch and the pipework are included.
If it is urgent
Damp, condensation or a room you cannot heat
Ring rather than use the form. Insulation is rarely an emergency, but a loft dripping with condensation, black mould coming back faster than you can wash it off, or a room that will not hold heat before a cold snap all get looked at quickly.
The first visit is about finding out whether the problem is insulation, ventilation or both, because insulating a roof space that cannot breathe makes it worse. In a top floor flat, check first that a damp patch is not the roof itself leaking, because that goes to the managing agent before it comes to us. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
In a block of flats, the roof belongs to the freeholder
Most homes in Canford Cliffs are flats, and most of those are in purpose-built blocks. That changes who can insulate what. Inside your own flat you can line a cold wall or deal with the draughts.
The roof over the top floor and the outside walls belong to the freeholder or the management company, and nobody can add insulation to them without their say. In a block with a flat roof there is usually no loft at all, so the time to insulate is when the covering is renewed: board laid over the deck as a warm roof, not pushed in underneath.
So if you are on the top floor and cold, raise it with the managing agent, ideally before the roof is next due for work. Where each leaseholder's share of a job goes over a set amount, the landlord has to consult everyone first under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which takes time, so it pays to get insulation written into the roofing specification early. We can price it in a form the agent can put to the other flats.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We insulate homes throughout Canford Cliffs, BH13, from the village on Haven Road to the houses along Cliff Drive and the edge of Branksome Park, and our base in Boscombe is a short drive away. BCP Council handles planning and building control.
You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of 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. Before you book a visit in Canford Cliffs, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Canford Cliffs?
Most repairs in Canford Cliffs 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 Canford Cliffs |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Canford Cliffs. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Branksome Park and Chine Gardens Conservation Area and Canford Cliffs Village Conservation Area. They cover parts of Canford Cliffs, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Canford Cliffs. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Canford Cliffs. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in Canford Cliffs
Can you insulate the rooms in our roof without taking the ceilings down?
Sometimes. The knee wall voids and the flat over the top can often be reached through small hatches. The sloping parts usually need the plasterboard off, or a new insulated board fixed over the old one, which loses a little headroom. We show you both at the survey.
How long does loft insulation take?
An ordinary loft is usually a day, including clearing the old material. A room in the roof with dormers is several days, because it is closer to building work than to laying rolls.
Will it make my top floor flat cooler in summer too?
Yes. Insulation slows heat in both directions, so a roof that is insulated properly keeps the flat cooler in a heatwave as well as warmer in January. Ventilation still matters.
Do you clear up after yourselves?
Dust sheets go down from the front door to the hatch, old insulation is bagged in the loft and carried out, and the landing is vacuumed at the end of each day.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Canford Cliffs
Nearby places we also cover for insulation, with straight-line distances from Canford Cliffs, and the other trades we offer in Canford Cliffs itself.
Insulation nearby
Our other trades in Canford Cliffs
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 Canford Cliffs Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a price to insulate your Canford Cliffs home
Tell us whether it is a house or a flat and what feels cold. We survey the roof space and walls and put an itemised quote in writing.