Insulation in Lover
Loft top-ups, flue clearances done properly, and warm roof work in converted outbuildings, surveyed before it is priced.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
For most houses around Lover the fix is a second layer of quilt laid across the joists and the eaves left properly open, not a bigger job than that. What decides it is what is already up there and what else is sharing the roof space with it, which is what the free site visit is for.
An older property at this end of Lover is worth a survey when it eats fuel, when the loft is a mess or when an annexe goes cold. A cottage that eats fuel and still has one cold room. A loft that has been opened up and found to be a mess, with quilt dragged about, droppings in it and daylight at the eaves. And a converted outbuilding or annexe that is fine in September and unusable in February.
Each of those is a different job and none of them is diagnosed from the doorstep. We get into the roof space and look at what is there: how deep the layer measures once a rule goes into it, whether it is dry, whether the eaves are open or stuffed shut, what is passing through the space, and what the ceiling below is made of.
Then we tell you plainly which parts are worth doing and which are not, and put a written itemised quote in front of you with the method on it as well as the number. Nothing is ordered until you have said yes to it.
The work
Nothing gets packed against the flue
Topping up a loft in an older cottage. Where a house around Lover predates 1919, the roof is usually cut timber, not trusses, which makes it easier to work in and easier to get wrong, because the joists are shallow and irregular.
Filling between them alone leaves every timber bridging the cold. It goes in between and over: mineral wool eco roll between the joists, a second run at right angles across the top, roughly 270mm all told, which is what brings a ceiling to the u-value of about 0.16 that Approved Document L expects when a roof is renovated.
Nothing gets packed against the flue. Where a house has a wood burner or a solid fuel stove, the flue often passes straight through the loft. Insulation cannot be packed against a twin wall flue or a chimney breast: the clearance the flue was installed with has to be kept, and the way to do that is a rigid non combustible collar holding the quilt back rather than a gap left in the layer around it. It is a small detail that is missed constantly, and it is one of the first things we look at when we get up there.
Rural roof spaces get visitors. Mice, squirrels and birds drag quilt into nests, flatten it and foul it, and once that has happened the material has to come out and be bagged rather than covered over. While the loft is clear we find where they are getting in and close it at the verge or the eaves without closing the ventilation. An outbuilding turned into a room may never have been built to hold heat at all: a single skin wall, a sheet roof and a concrete floor need rigid board on the walls, a warm roof build-up in PIR over the deck, and honest talk about ventilation before anything is sealed up. Where a ceiling follows the roof and there is no head height to give away, a multi-layer foil quilt such as TLX does what a thick board cannot, taped so the vapour control layer stays continuous.
An older cottage is usually solid wall with no cavity to fill, so it is internal wall insulation on the room face, built to breathe, or external wall insulation on the outside, which inside the National Park is a planning question before it is a technical one. A post-war house or bungalow will usually have a cavity, and we borescope it before anyone quotes a fill and never assume either way. Then the practical bits: an insulated, draughtproofed hatch, fire rated covers over downlighters, lagging on the cold water tank and every pipe run left above the new layer, and a boarded deck on legs where you want storage back.
How it runs
Insulating an older house: survey first, then the work
Thomas comes out, goes into the loft, looks at the walls and prices the job himself. On an older house the first question is how the building handles moisture. A solid wall, or an old roof with no membrane, needs insulation that lets it breathe, such as sheep's wool or wood fibre, with ventilation kept open, or the fix causes damp.
The quote has separate lines for the survey, clearing, the material and its depth, ventilation work and disposal. Thomas Hannen surveys and prices every job. Old quilt is bagged in the loft and carried out, the hatch and landing are cleaned down, and the waste leaves with us. Lover is 18.1 miles out, so the material is ordered from the survey and comes with us. Wet timber, droppings or a roof leak found up there are photographed and priced before any extra work.
Insulating a loft or lining a wall inside is an improvement, not development, so no planning permission is needed, as the Planning Portal's insulation guidance sets out. Building control, run by Wiltshire Council, comes in when a thermal element is renovated or an outbuilding becomes a room. Outside, the National Park Authority plans for the area, and its heritage and conservation team takes an interest in anything that changes how a building looks.
Cost
Walls, roof or an outbuilding: what drives the cost
The loft space sets the pace. A small hatch over a cupboard and low eaves make every trip slow. A roof you can stand up in is quick. A hipped roof closes down at the corners, and those edges are where the depth runs thin.
What is up there. Old quilt that is dry can stay and be topped up across the joists. Quilt that is fouled, wet or crushed has to be bagged and taken away first, and that is a line of its own.
The material. Mineral wool is the usual choice. Where an old roof has no breathable membrane, or a wall is solid, a natural fibre that handles moisture may be better, and it costs more.
Ventilation. The eaves must stay open. On an old roof with no membrane, air comes in through the tiles, and the insulation has to sit so it does not block that.
Flues and pipes. A wood burner or an old chimney means keeping insulation clear of the flue, and every pipe and tank in the cold needs lagging.
Outbuildings. Turning an annexe or outbuilding into a warm room is a different job: floor, walls and roof, plus building control. Approved Document L sets what the work must reach.
Ask the other quotes: what finished depth? Is old material coming out? Are flue clearance and pipe lagging itemised?
If it is urgent
Condensation on the timbers, or a room you cannot heat
Most insulation is planned, but some problems should not wait. Ring if the loft is dripping with condensation, if mould is spreading on the timbers, or if a room will not hold heat before a cold spell.
Do not add more insulation to a wet loft, because it blocks the air and makes it worse. The first visit finds the cause, whether a blocked eaves vent, a fan venting into the loft or a slipped tile, and says honestly whether it is insulation or ventilation. Lover is at the far end of our area, so you will get a straight answer on which day we can come. Planned work is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If nobody picks up, we ring back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
The National Park controls the outside, not what goes inside
The National Park boundary runs close by here, and it is not obvious from the road which side of it a given house sits on. It matters less than people fear. Everything that happens above your ceiling or on the room face of a wall is invisible from outside and is not a planning matter at all, so loft work, draughtproofing, pipe lagging and internal linings are unaffected by the designation.
What the Park does look closely at is anything that changes how a building reads: external wall insulation, which alters the face of the wall, the depth of every window reveal and the overhang at the eaves, and any rooflight or dormer added to get light into a converted attic. The Authority's interactive property map will tell you in a minute whether you are inside the boundary, and it is worth checking before you plan anything external rather than after.
The practical consequence for a cold stone or solid brick cottage out in Lover is that the sensible route is usually the inside one: get the loft right, seal the draughts, then look at internal wall insulation on the coldest elevations. That has its own rules.
The build-up has to let the wall keep drying, the cold bridge at the joist ends and the window reveals has to be dealt with, you lose a little floor area, and the room needs enough ventilation afterwards. Any quote that offers to line a solid wall with a sealed plastic board and says nothing about breathability or about the reveals is quoting a different job from the one your house needs.
Who you are dealing with
Who insulates your house, and how far we travel
Lover sits 18.1 miles from our Boscombe base, and alongside it we cover Redlynch, Morgan's Vale, Woodfalls and Nomansland, out through Downton and Fordingbridge. Wiltshire Council oversees building regulations for Lover, and the National Park Authority is the planning body inside the Park boundary.
The business is registered in England and Wales as Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, number 15471719. It is owned by Thomas Hannen, who goes up into the loft himself to price it. Checkatrade lists a verified customer's 10 out of 10. You are not charged for the survey or the written quote, which lists every item. Before you book a visit in Lover, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Lover?
Most repairs in Lover 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 Lover |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Lover. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Lover, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Lover. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the New Forest National Park, where design is looked at more closely and permitted development rights are narrower. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in Lover
Is there a conservation area over Lover?
No conservation area covers Lover. The New Forest National Park Authority is still the planning authority here, not the district council, and it looks at anything visible: a change of covering, a rooflight, vent tiles on a front slope. Work inside the roof is none of its business. There are 8 listed entries in the area and only those houses need consent before ceilings or linings are touched.
Our ceilings are lath and plaster. Will they carry it?
They will carry loose quilt but nothing heavy, and they must never be walked on. In a pre-1919 house the ceiling is usually lime plaster on timber laths held up by nothing more than the keys squeezed through the gaps. I work off boards spanning the joists and lay material by hand from the edge of the board rather than kneeling between them.
We have a bungalow with a big roof. Where is the loss?
Through the ceiling mostly, and out at the perimeter. A detached bungalow is a large single storey roof standing on its own, with wind getting at every side. Material that stops a foot short of the wall plate leaves a cold ring right round the building, and that shows up as black mould in the corners of the rooms below.
Which houses in Lover are usually the worst?
The two extremes, for opposite reasons. An old cottage tends to have solid walls and open chimneys, while a post war house tends to have a thin original ceiling layer and an unsealed hatch. What they share is that none of it was built to be airtight. I look at chimneys, hatches and eaves before anything else, because those three account for most of the draught.
Would you work on this through the winter?
Yes, and a cold spell is the best time to see what is wrong. Lover sits on ground that holds water and the roof spaces get properly cold, so in January you can feel where the draughts come through and see where frost melts off the slope in patches. Roof work is inside and dry, so weather stops nothing. Wall linings I would rather do in a settled stretch.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Lover
Nearby places we also cover for insulation, with straight-line distances from Lover, and the other trades we offer in Lover itself.
Insulation nearby
Our other trades in Lover
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 Ringwood Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Have a look in the loft first
A free site visit around Lover and Redlynch, a rule in whatever is up there now, and a written itemised quote with the method on it as well as the number.