Insulation in Hamworthy
Lofts topped up, rooms in the roof lined, and cavity walls checked before they are filled, on homes across Hamworthy.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Most homes in Hamworthy are sixties and seventies semis, terraces and bungalows with a cavity wall and a loft that still has the thin layer it was built with. We survey both, then price the loft, the walls and any room in the roof as separate lines.
Heat escapes Hamworthy homes through bungalow lofts, semi gables and the sloping ceilings of top floor flats. A bungalow that loses its heat as fast as the boiler puts it in, where the loft is the whole footprint of the house. A semi with a cold gable wall and a bedroom that never gets warm. And a top floor flat, or a converted loft, with sloping ceilings that run with condensation on a cold morning.
Thomas comes out, looks in the loft, checks the walls, and tells you which one is worth doing first. The site visit is free and so is the written quote. If the loft is already at a good depth and the real problem is a draughty door or a blocked vent, you will hear that instead.
The work
Roof spaces, bungalows and cavity walls
Topping up the loft comes first. On a Hamworthy house of this age the loft usually has a thin, flattened layer of mineral wool between the joists, often pushed aside by years of storage.
We clear what is in the way, straighten and even out the old layer, close the gaps round the edges and the hatch, then lay a second layer of eco roll across the joists, between and over, to about 270mm finished. That is the depth a U-value of 0.16 asks for, rather than the 250mm people often remember. The cold water tank and its pipes are lagged, downlighters get covers, and if you want to keep storing boxes up there, raised boarding goes over the top so the new insulation is not squashed. More on the loft work itself is on our loft insulation in Hamworthy page.
Bungalows. There are plenty of bungalows in Hamworthy, and a bungalow is the house where the loft matters most, because every room has roof above it. The catch is the eaves: on a shallow pitch the roof comes down close to the ceiling joists at the edges, and that is where insulation gets stuffed in and blocks the air path. We fit a vent tray at each rafter bay so the air keeps moving, then take the depth right to the wall plate. Where a bungalow has had rooms built into the roof, the slopes are insulated at rafter level with rigid PIR board, Celotex or similar, between the rafters with a gap above and a second layer underneath with a taped vapour control layer. Dormer cheeks and any small flat roofs over them get the same attention.
Cavity walls. Nearly everything built in Hamworthy from the sixties on has a cavity. Some were filled years ago under grant schemes, some never were. We look with a borescope through a small hole before recommending anything, because an empty cavity, a partly filled one and a fill that has settled or got wet are three different answers. The detail is on our wall insulation page.
Flats. A top floor flat's roof usually belongs to the freeholder, so anything above the ceiling is their decision. Inside, we can deal with the hatch, the draughts and a cold external wall with an internal lining.
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 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 a cavity needs no planning permission, as the Planning Portal guidance on insulation explains, and there is no conservation area in Hamworthy. Cavity fill and larger renovations are notifiable under building regulations, and regulation 23 brings the whole of a roof or wall up to the current standard once more than half of it is renovated. The Old Rectory is one of a handful of listed buildings here, and those can need consent even for work inside.
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 bungalow in Lake with a big, low loft, a semi on Turlin Moor with a shared party wall and a cramped hatch, and a top floor flat by the quay with no loft at all are very different jobs. 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 are all worth a call.
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. If black mould has appeared on the inside of a gable wall facing the water, open the windows for an hour a day and keep furniture away from that wall until we have seen it. 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
On a peninsula, check the exposure before you insulate
Hamworthy has Poole Harbour to the south, Holes Bay to the east and Lytchett Bay to the west, so rain arrives across open water from almost every side, driven by wind with nothing to slow it. That matters for cavity wall insulation.
The cavity exists partly to stop rain that soaks into the outer brick from reaching the inner leaf. Fill it with the wrong material, or fill a wall with cracked brickwork or tired pointing, and water can track across to the inside, which shows up as damp patches on the very wall you were trying to warm. How exposed a wall is to wind-driven rain is assessed under BS 8104, and it decides which fills are suitable.
So before agreeing to cavity fill on a house here, especially on a wall facing the harbour or the bays, get the outer brickwork and pointing looked at first and ask what material is proposed for that exposure. If a wall was filled years ago and has since developed damp inside, the old fill may need extracting rather than topping up. We check with a borescope and tell you straight.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We insulate homes across Hamworthy, BH15, from Lower Hamworthy and Carter's Quay through Lake and Rockley to Cobbs Quay and Turlin Moor, on the far side of Poole from our base in Boscombe. BCP Council is the planning and building control authority.
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 Hamworthy, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Hamworthy?
Most repairs in Hamworthy 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 Hamworthy |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Hamworthy. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Hamworthy, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Hamworthy. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Hamworthy. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in Hamworthy
Is it worth topping up a loft that already has some insulation?
Usually, yes. The layer put in when these houses were built is thin by current standards and has often been squashed flat. Topping it up to full depth is one of the cheaper ways to cut a heating bill.
How long does it take to insulate a bungalow loft?
Most are done in a day. Clearing a lot of stored boxes, lifting boarding or fitting vent trays all the way round the eaves can add a second day, and the quote says which.
My walls were filled years ago. Could that be causing damp?
It can be, particularly on an exposed wall where the fill has got wet. We look through a borescope, check the outer brickwork, and tell you whether the fill is the cause before anything is removed.
Will you make a mess inside the house?
Dust sheets go down from the door to the hatch, the old material is bagged in the loft before it comes down, and everything is vacuumed at the end of each day.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Hamworthy
Nearby places we also cover for insulation, with straight-line distances from Hamworthy, and the other trades we offer in Hamworthy itself.
Insulation nearby
Our other trades in Hamworthy
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 Hamworthy Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get a price to insulate your Hamworthy home
Tell us the type of house and what feels cold. We check the loft and the walls and send an itemised quote in writing.