Insulation in Cranborne
Loft, floor and rafter insulation on old village houses, done with build-ups that let the building carry on breathing.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
A full depth roof on its own leaves half the heat in an older Cranborne cottage going out below your feet and through the front door. These houses have solid walls, suspended timber floors over a ventilated void and a lot of gaps. The loft is still where the work starts, but it is not usually where it ends, so we look at the roof, the floor and the draughts together and tell you the order to do them in.
Out in Cranborne, oil use and a damp downstairs room are what tend to bring insulation up. A house that swallows a tank of oil far faster than it should and still has rooms nobody sits in during the winter. And a cold, damp feeling that has settled into a downstairs room, with mould appearing in the corners and behind furniture on the outside walls.
Both are heat loss problems and neither is fixed by turning the heating up. The visit is about finding where the heat is actually going: depth measured in the roof space, floors checked from below where there is access, walls identified as solid or cavity, and the obvious draught paths found. Free site visit, free written itemised quote, and an honest running order.
The work
Nobody should be filling a thatched roof solid
The roof space, first and always. Mineral wool, ordinary eco roll, between the ceiling joists and then a second layer across them, around 250 to 270mm all in, which takes a ceiling close to the 0.16 u-value expected at ceiling level when a pitched roof is renovated.
In these cottages the difficulty is never the middle of the loft. It is the low eaves, the purlins in the way, the lath and plaster ceiling you cannot stand on, and getting depth right out to the wall plate instead of stopping where it is comfortable. Where a corner has been boarded out for storage we lift it and raise it on legs so the depth runs underneath. Where a cottage has a room in the roof the work goes to rafter level: rigid board, foil faced PIR, between and under the rafters, or a multi-layer foil quilt such as TLX where a sloping ceiling has no depth to lose.
Where there is thatch, the rules change. A thatched roof needs its roof space to stay ventilated and dry, so insulation goes at ceiling level with a clear ventilated void above it, not packed tight against the underside of the thatch. Anyone offering to fill a thatched roof solid should be shown the door.
There is no cavity wall to fill in the older part of the village, so it is internal wall insulation, and the build-up wants to be vapour open, wood fibre and lime rather than a foil faced board sealed to the wall, because a brick and flint wall has always dried by letting moisture move through it. With many Cranborne households off the gas main and on oil, the fabric is what decides how much of it you buy.
Vent trays go in at the eaves so the wool is not choking the air path, and Approved Document F is the standard for the ventilation half of it. Lagging on the tank and on pipework now sitting above the warm layer matters more out in Cranborne, where a burst is a long wait for help.
How it runs
Insulating an older house without trapping damp
Thomas surveys the house in person: the loft, the walls, the floors, and how the building breathes at the moment. He prices it himself, and he stays your contact for every part of it.
The written quote itemises the survey, clearing out, the material and its depth, ventilation works and disposal.
Older houses round Cranborne are often solid brick or flint, sometimes with rooms in the roof and a loft hatch barely wide enough for your shoulders. Walls like these were built to let moisture out, and the insulation must work with that. So the loft gets mineral wool or a natural fibre with the eaves kept open, and solid walls get a breathable lining where it suits. Everything comes through the house, so landing and stairs are sheeted and material is carried by hand. Old insulation is bagged where it lies and taken away, and the house is cleaned before we go. Wet timber or a roof leak found on the way gets a photo and a cost first.
Loft work and internal linings cannot be seen from the street and need no permission. External wall insulation changes the face of the building, so speak to Dorset Council first, especially if a conservation area might apply. On a listed building listed building consent can be needed even inside. A room in the roof brings in building control, and we raise both at the survey.
Cost
Hatches, old material and eaves: the real costs
The same floor plan can take half a day or three, depending on what is in the way. Getting in. A cottage with a tiny hatch, a converted outbuilding with its rooms already up in the roof, and a post war house with a loft ladder are very different mornings. A small hatch means everything goes up and down in small bags.
What is there now. Old, squashed or damp material has to be bagged and removed before anything new goes down. Stored boxes and furniture move out and back, and boarding comes up and goes back down.
Keeping the roof dry. The eaves must stay open. On an older roof with no breathable membrane, that can mean fitting eaves vents or trays, which gets its own figure. Pipes and tanks left above the new insulation need lagging.
Walls and roof rooms. A room in the roof needs insulation between and under the rafters with the air gap kept open. A solid brick or flint wall needs a lining that breathes, which is slower than filling a cavity.
Approved Document L is the standard. Ask any other firm to state the depth being laid, whether old material comes out or stays, and whether hatch and pipework are included.
If it is urgent
Condensation, mould or a room that will not warm up
Condensation dripping in the loft, mould back within days of wiping it, or a room that stays cold whatever the heating does are all worth a look before the next cold spell. Adding insulation to a roof that cannot breathe makes it worse, so hold off until it has been checked.
Air the loft by leaving the hatch open for a while on a dry day, and keep bathroom and kitchen doors shut while they are steamy. The first visit tells whether it is ventilation, a leak or a gap in the insulation, and what comes first. We do booked work Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If rain is dripping in, call instead of filling in the form, and if there is no answer, we phone you back as soon as we are able to.
The one local thing
Off the gas main, so every unit you keep is worth more
Many households around Cranborne heat with oil or electricity. That single fact changes the maths of everything on this page. On mains gas you buy heat cheaply and continuously and barely notice it leaving. On oil you buy it in advance, by the tankful, at a price that moves between one delivery and the next, and on electric heating you pay the most per unit of anybody.
The heat you fail to lose is therefore worth more here than it is in town, which is why fabric work out in these villages tends to be the better spend and why we will nearly always tell you to do the roof, the floor and the draughts before you touch the heating itself.
There is a second reason to take that order seriously. Boilers and heat pumps are sized on how much heat a house loses, and if you replace the heating first you get a machine sized for the house you have rather than the house you are about to have. That means paying for capacity you then insulate away, and with a heat pump it matters more again, because a low heat loss house lets one run at a low flow temperature where a leaky one will not.
So if a new heating system is anywhere on your list, insulate first, have the heat loss worked out afterwards, and let the fabric decide the size. It is the one bit of sequencing that saves people real money out here and it costs nothing to get right.
Who you are dealing with
Insulation surveyed and priced in person
Cranborne is 13.9 miles from where we are based in Boscombe. We insulate homes in the village, Alderholt, Edmondsham, Wimborne St Giles, Sixpenny Handley and out towards Verwood, all with Dorset Council for building control.
You would be dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, which has the company number 15471719. The business is Thomas Hannen's, and he comes to your house, goes into the loft and prices the job himself. We hold a verified 10 out of 10 from a customer on Checkatrade. The site visit costs nothing, and the same goes for the quote, written out item by item. Before you book a visit in Cranborne, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Cranborne?
Most repairs in Cranborne 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 Cranborne |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Cranborne. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Cranborne Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Cranborne. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in Cranborne
A lot of Cranborne is on oil. Does insulation help?
Yes, insulation helps most where the heat arrives by tanker, as it does for a lot of households in Cranborne. The fabric decides how many litres you burn; the tank only decides when you notice. A loft top up changes nothing about the boiler, but a ceiling that holds heat means the burner cycles less and a tank lasts further into the winter. That is why we start with the fabric.
Our cottage is in the Cranborne conservation area. What applies?
The controls are on what can be seen. Inside the Cranborne Conservation Area, Dorset Council look at a change of covering or material, not at quilt sitting on your ceiling joists. There are twenty five listed entries in the village as well, and if yours is one of them, consent covers the inside too, including anything fixed to a historic ceiling. We check the designation before we write the quote.
Does the Cranborne Chase designation restrict what we can do?
It puts design scrutiny on anything visible, which is a planning matter rather than a building one. Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs covers this area, so a solar panel, a rooflight or a change of tile gets looked at on how it reads in the landscape. Insulation under the roof covering is not visible and is not affected. External wall insulation on a front elevation would be.
What is the quickest way to ruin an old Cranborne cottage?
Seal it: old buildings in a village like this were built to let moisture pass through the walls and out through a ventilated roof, and a lot of the damage in houses like these started with foam, foil and impermeable paint. Insulation that breathes, laid loose, with the eaves left open, does the same job without trapping water in the timber. That is the whole difference.
What happens on the visit before you price the job?
Thomas comes out, goes into the roof, measures the depth of what is already there and looks at the eaves, the hatch and the state of the timbers. In Cranborne, which lies in the Cranborne Conservation Area, he will also check whether the address is listed, because that decides what can be specified. Then you get a written quote, itemised, with no charge for either the visit or the paperwork.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Cranborne
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Our other trades in Cranborne
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 Verwood Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Find out where the heat is really going
A free site visit that looks at the roof, the floor and the draughts, then a written itemised quote in a sensible order.