Insulation in Ferndown
Loft top-ups, cavity wall fill and warm roofs across Ferndown and BH22, out towards West Parley and West Moors. The visit and the written quote are both free.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most Ferndown lofts we open have been done once, decades ago, and never touched since. There is usually a thin layer between the joists and nothing over them, which is roughly a third of what the ceiling should be carrying. Topping it up properly is a day, and it is the first thing we would do in almost every house here.
The calls fall into a pattern. The heating runs longer than it used to for the same house. There is one room, often a back bedroom, that never really gets there. Or somebody has finally been up through the hatch, found flattened grey wool between the joists with the timber showing proud of it, and wants to know whether that is normal.
It is normal, and it is fixable. We come out, get into the roof space and into the rooms below it, and look at what is there rather than what the age of the house suggests should be. Then you get a written price with the survey, the clearing out, the material, the depth, the ventilation and the disposal each on their own line, so you can hold it up against anyone else's. If the loft alone will do it, the quote will say so and stop there.
The work
In a flat, the roof above you is not yours to fix
Topping up a loft that was done once and left. Ferndown filled in quickly, with 54.9 per cent of the housing going up between 1945 and 1982 and the peak in the late sixties and early seventies, so a great many lofts here were insulated to the standard of that decade and have sat there since. Whatever went down has settled, compressed under storage and pulled away from the joists at the gaps. We take out anything damp, flattened or contaminated, bag it and take it away, then lay mineral wool, ordinary eco roll, between the joists and a second layer over and across them so no timber is left bare. Approved Document L puts a loft that is being upgraded at a u-value of about 0.16, which is 270mm in ordinary roll.
Flats, and who can actually instruct the job. Flats and maisonettes are 30.9 per cent of the dwellings in Ferndown, and if you are in one the roof space above you almost certainly is not yours. The structure and the outside of the building belong to the freeholder and are looked after out of the service charge, so the person who feels the cold ceiling is often not the person who can order the work. There is also a formal consultation a landlord has to run with leaseholders before works over a certain size, set out in section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. We will survey and quote for a managing agent or a residents' company, and we will say plainly if the caller is not the right person to commission it.
Bungalows are 42.7 per cent of the housing here and that generation went up under factory made trusses at close centres, with diagonal webs running through the space at knee height. It is a roof you crawl through rather than walk in, which is why so many Ferndown lofts have a small boarded island by the hatch and nothing beyond it. Where you want usable storage the boarding goes on raised legs over the full depth, never on the joists and never fixed through a truss web.
Cavities get a borescope check before anything is drilled, because filling a wall that is already full, or damp, or bridged, causes problems rather than solving them. Where the loft has been converted into a room in the roof the insulation belongs at the rafters: rigid board, foil faced PIR, between and under them, or a multi-layer foil quilt such as TLX where a sloping ceiling or a dormer cheek has no depth to give, with a vapour control layer on the warm side and a clear air gap above, and the little voids behind the knee walls done at the same time. Then vent trays keeping the eaves open, covers over downlighters, lagging on pipework now above the insulation, and an insulated, draught sealed hatch.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from the first visit to the last, and the quote itemised: survey, clearing, the material and its depth, ventilation works and disposal on separate lines.
There is nothing listed in Ferndown and the town has no conservation area, which is unusual on this patch and makes life simpler: loft and cavity work is permitted development, as Planning Portal guidance on insulation sets out, and even external work is judged on the ordinary rules in Planning Portal guidance on external walls rather than on appearance controls. Where insulation forms part of larger building work, building control comes into it and we will tell you when that applies.
Cost
What decides the price of an insulation job
A bungalow with a hall hatch and a clear loft is one job, a top floor flat where access is through a communal landing is another, and a converted roof where flooring has to come up and go back is another again. Old material to bag and take away, storage to move and put back, and eaves that must stay clear all come first, and Approved Document L sets what the work has to reach. Comparing quotes, ask what depth is being laid, whether the old material is removed or covered, and whether the hatch and pipework are included.
If it is urgent
Damp, condensation or a room you cannot heat
Ring rather than use the form. A loft dripping with condensation, mould coming back faster than you can wash it off, or a room that will not hold heat before a cold snap gets looked at quickly. If mould keeps returning in the same corner of a Ferndown bedroom however often you wash it off, book a visit rather than buying another tub of spray.
The one local thing
Bungalow country, and why that makes the ceiling the whole job
Bungalows are 42.7% of the dwellings in Ferndown, and that one figure changes the advice more than anything else about the town. In a two-storey house the loft covers perhaps half the floor area, and heat leaving upwards is only part of the story. In a bungalow the loft is the ceiling of every room you use.
The same family, the same furniture and the same number of bedrooms sit under roughly twice the roof, so the ceiling is doing far more of the heat loss and a top-up buys back far more of it. If you own a bungalow here and you are choosing one thing to spend on, it is not a close call.
The flip side is that there is more of it to do, and the awkward parts scale with the footprint rather than with the number of bedrooms. More perimeter, more eaves to keep clear, more hip ends where the roof drops away and you are working flat on your front.
A bungalow loft is also usually the only storage in the house, which is why we quote raised boarding as a normal part of the job here rather than as an afterthought: take the storage away and the boards go back down on the joists within a year, and the insulation underneath is flat again. Get the depth, the eaves and the boarding sorted in one visit and it is done for good.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Ferndown and BH22 right across to West Parley, West Moors and Longham, and we are less than six miles from the yard. 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
Ferndown questions we get asked
We are in the Green Belt. Does that block anything?
Not a repair or an insulation job. Green Belt in Ferndown bites on new buildings and extensions, an outbuilding in the garden or a garage conversion that adds volume, and Dorset Council look at it in those terms. Work inside an existing roof is not affected. Ferndown also has no conservation area and no listed entries, so the outside of your roof is not controlled on appearance either.
Ferndown is bungalows and flats. Which needs the work more?
The bungalows, by a distance. 42.7% of Ferndown dwellings are bungalows and 30.9% are flats, and a bungalow puts the entire floor area of the house directly under the roof while a ground floor flat has a heated flat above it. If you are in a bungalow here, the ceiling is the biggest single hole in the fabric and the easiest one to close.
Our house dates from around 1970. What usually needs doing?
The ceiling and the hatch, in that order. Just over half of Ferndown was built between 1945 and 1982, with the largest group in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and houses from that run were built with a loose lay of quilt and an unsealed plywood hatch. The hatch alone leaks a surprising amount of warm air. We seal and insulate it as part of the same visit.
There is a damp corner in the back bedroom. Related?
Usually not, and adding insulation over it would hide the cause. A corner stain in a Ferndown bungalow is normally a slipped tile, a blocked valley or condensation forming where the ceiling meets a cold outside wall. We find out which before anything goes over it, because quilt laid on a wet ceiling stays wet and the plaster carries on failing underneath. The survey checks the roof from above.
Who actually turns up, and who writes the price?
Thomas Hannen owns the firm and comes out himself, so the person who looks at your loft is the person who writes the quote. Bournemouth Roofing and Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Ferndown is under six miles from us, which makes getting out to look easy. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free and you are under no obligation.
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Find out what is actually in your loft
A free survey in the roof space and the rooms below it, then an itemised written price. Nothing paid up front and no obligation to go ahead.