Insulation in Corfe Mullen

Topping up a loft that was insulated when the house was built. Sixty-two per cent of the housing here went up between 1945 and 1982, with a third of the whole village dating from the 1970s and early 1980s, and a loft of that age typically got between an inch and three inches of wool.

Mineral wool, ordinary eco roll, goes down in two layers, the first between the joists and the second straight across them so the joists stop acting as a cold bridge through the whole ceiling. Full depth is around 250 to 270mm, which brings a roof close to the 0.16 u-value expected of a renovated roof today. The old compressed layer stays put and counts towards the total.

Bungalows, and boarded lofts. A third of the dwellings here are bungalows, so the entire floor plan sits under the roof, and where that loft is thin the ceiling is often the biggest single heat loss in the bungalow. It also means more square metres to cover, and we measure the actual footprint on the visit rather than working it out from the outside of the building. Boarding laid flat on the joists caps the insulation at joist depth and quietly wastes the top up you have just paid for, so loft legs lift it clear, full depth runs underneath and you keep every inch of storage. Where the boarding is old chipboard that has sagged we will say so, and not lift and relay something ready to fail.

Plenty of houses in Corfe Mullen have a room in the roof, often with a dormer on the back built as a warm roof, and there the insulation goes between and under the rafters instead of across a floor: rigid board, PIR and foil faced, cut tight into each bay and taped, or a multi-layer foil quilt such as TLX where headroom is tight. The cold triangles behind the knee walls and above the flat section of ceiling are where the heat actually goes, and they are the parts most quotes forget.

Houses of this era were built with a cavity and around Corfe Mullen it has usually been filled at some point by somebody, so whether the fill is still even, whether it has slumped and left a cold gap at the top, and whether it has bridged and gone damp are all borescope questions. Vent trays go in at the eaves so wool is not blocking the air path, because a warm ceiling under a cold roof needs that roof to breathe or you swap a heat problem for a damp one, and Approved Document F covers that side. Then lagging on the tank and on the pipework now sitting above the warm layer, and fire rated covers over the downlighters before anything is laid over them.

Insulation is not priced per square metre. The same address on paper can hide very different jobs. The roof shape. A bungalow with the whole footprint under one loft is a big area but open and quick. A chalet bungalow with rooms in the roof means opening knee walls, insulating the sloping ceilings and the small lofts behind, and making good. Where a semi's loft is boarded and used for storage, clearing comes first.

What is there now. Lofts of this age often have a thin original layer, flattened and sometimes wet at the eaves. It is either topped up or bagged and removed, and that is a line on the quote.

Walls. Houses from the seventies and eighties usually have a cavity, sometimes already filled. A borescope check tells us whether filling is possible or sensible.

Ventilation. The eaves must stay clear, and in a chalet the air path behind the sloping ceiling is easy to block. The standard to meet comes from Approved Document L.

Ask any other installer what depth they will lay, whether the old layer comes out or stays, and whether the knee walls, hatch and pipework are in the price.

We cover Corfe Mullen and the roads around it, Lambs Green, Higher Merley, Broadstone, Upton and out to Wimborne, in BH21, roughly eight and a half miles from where we are based in Boscombe. Any consent or building control question goes to Dorset Council.

The survey and the pricing are done by the owner, Thomas Hannen. The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales under 15471719. On Checkatrade you can read a 10 out of 10 from a verified customer. We do not charge for the survey visit, and the written quote itemises everything and costs nothing. Before you book a visit in Corfe Mullen, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Corfe Mullen 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.