Insulation in Matchams
Lofts, flat roofed extensions, outbuilding conversions and wall insulation on the heathland houses between Hurn and Ringwood.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Houses at Matchams are rarely one house. They are a core with things added to it over forty years, and the heat goes out at the joins between them rather than evenly across the roof. So the survey maps the whole envelope before anybody prices a roll of anything, and the written quote is broken down by section of the building.
The calls from Matchams tend to be one of three. A room over an extension that has never held heat, whatever the heating is doing. A flat roofed addition that runs with water on the inside every cold morning. Or an outbuilding that is about to become an office, a gym or a spare room, and needs doing properly rather than lined with whatever is on offer.
None of those is a bag-of-quilt problem. The site visit is a walk round the outside and a look in every void: how the roof steps where the building was extended, whether each loft section is separate or connects, what the walls are actually built of, whether the eaves are open, and where the cold is getting in at ground level as well as overhead. You get an itemised written quote from that with the method on it, and nothing is ordered until you have said yes.
The work
The heat goes out where the extensions meet
Lofts that come in sections. A house on the lane here has usually grown, so the roof space sits at two or three levels with a step and a stub wall between each part, and every section was built to the standard of a different decade. Quilt laid across the middle of each one and stopped dead at the divide leaves a cold strip the width of a wall running through the house. We lay between and over throughout, mineral wool between the joists and an eco roll at right angles above them, then carry it over the stub walls and into the corners so the depth is the same everywhere. A renovated ceiling is expected to reach a U-value of 0.16, nearer 270mm than the 250 people remember.
Rear additions, garden rooms and the single storey link between a house and its garage are where most of the condensation calls come from out here. A cold deck with a bit of quilt shoved between the joists and no way for air to cross the void is a mould factory. If the covering is coming off anyway the answer is a warm roof, rigid board such as Celotex above the deck with the vapour control layer under it. Where the covering is staying we insulate below and fit the ventilation the void needs instead, and we will tell you which of the two you are getting.
Plenty of one-off houses on this ground were built as timber frame with a brick skin outside, and the gap behind that brick is a drained and ventilated cavity, not an empty one waiting to be filled. We check what the wall is before anybody talks about a cavity wall fill. Where a wall is solid, internal wall insulation built to breathe is the route. The most exposed elevation here faces south west, and wind and driven rain work at the edges and the openings rather than the middle of a surface, so vent trays at the eaves, a draughtproofed hatch and lagging on every pipe above the new layer decide more than the roll does. Where a loft has already become a room in roof, it is PIR between the rafters with a multi-layer quilt such as TLX under a sloping ceiling that has no depth to give.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised, with material, depth, ventilation and disposal on separate lines. Insulating a loft or lining a wall inside is permitted development, and Planning Portal guidance on insulation sets out where that stops; the guidance on external walls covers the point at which cladding the outside becomes a planning matter. There is no conservation area over Matchams and nothing here is listed, which is rare on this patch and leaves the outside your choice. Building control comes in once a thermal element is renovated or an outbuilding changes use. Dorset Council is the authority. Insulation fitted in an existing home is zero rated for VAT under HMRC Notice 708/6.
Cost
What decides the price of an insulation job
No rate per square metre: the area is the easy part and everything round it is the awkward part. A bungalow with a hatch in the hall and a clear run across the joists is one day; a garage with no ceiling and no way in but a ladder outside is another. Old material to bag and take away, and boarding to lift and put back, come before anything new goes down. Approved Document L sets what the work has to reach. Ask what depth is being laid, whether the old material comes out, and whether the eaves and hatch 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 that keeps coming back, or a room that will not hold heat gets seen quickly. The first visit settles whether that is insulation, ventilation or both, because insulating a space that cannot breathe makes it worse. We are ten minutes down the road from Matchams. Outside Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm is by arrangement.
Worth knowing
Nothing here is listed, and that changes what is possible outside
On most of this patch the first question about insulation is a heritage one. Around Matchams it is not. There is no conservation area over this settlement and there are no listed buildings in it, which is uncommon enough on our side of Dorset to be worth saying out loud.
It means that on an ordinary house here, external wall insulation is a technical and appearance question rather than a consent application. Where a solid walled house or a converted outbuilding would lose too much room off the inside, wrapping the outside is genuinely on the table, and the same goes for replacing a thin rendered skin with an insulated system rather than patching it again.
Two things still apply and they catch people out. The first is the roof edge. Adding a hundred millimetres or more to the face of a wall eats the overhang at the eaves and the verge, so the roof has to be extended out over the new line or you finish up with water running down the freshly insulated wall. That is roofing work in an insulation quote and it belongs on the page as its own line.
The second is that this is open countryside with Green Belt over it, so while a thermal upgrade to an existing house is not development, a new outbuilding or an extension very much is, and a one-off house built under conditions can have had its permitted development rights trimmed by the original permission. If you are combining the insulation with anything that grows the building, check that first. We will flag it at the visit rather than after the scaffold is up.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Matchams and the lanes each side of it, St Leonards, St Ives, Ashley Heath and Hurn on BH24, out through Ringwood, Verwood and Christchurch, and Dorset Council is the planning and building control authority for this address.
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
Matchams questions we get asked
Nothing here is listed. Does that make anything simpler?
It removes a whole layer of asking. Matchams has no conservation area and no listed entries at all, which is unusual on this patch, so loft and roof work is ordinary permitted development and the materials are your choice rather than a planning officer's. That means we can pick on performance and on what fits the roof, not on how it reads from the road. Dorset Council only come into it if you change the shape of the building.
Why is the flat roofed part colder than every other room?
Because a flat roof has a shallow void and usually very little in it. On a warm deck the insulation goes above the existing deck under a new covering; on a cold deck it goes between the joists with a ventilated gap kept above it. The exposed elevation at Matchams faces south west, so driven rain lands on the same edge upstand every winter, and that upstand is where we check for wet decking first.
What do you actually check when you come out?
Depth, coverage, ventilation and the hatch, in that order. We measure what is between the joists in three or four places rather than one, then look along the eaves to see whether it runs past the wall plate or stops short of it. Blocked vents get noted and cleared, and the hatch and any tank get their own lines on the quote. At Matchams nothing is listed, so opening up a vent outside is your decision and nobody else's.
Is blown fibre better than rolls in an older roof?
It depends on whether we can reach the corners. Rolls go down over the joists in two crossed layers and can be lifted later if a cable or a leak needs finding, while loose fill blows into awkward corners and around odd shaped voids where a roll will not sit flat. Where a Matchams loft has a tight eaves or an irregular shape, loose fill with rafter trays holds the depth that a roll would ride up over.
We are in the Green Belt. Does that affect insulation?
Green Belt policy has nothing to say about insulation. It controls new building and the size of what is already there, so it bears on an extension or a garden outbuilding rather than on wool going into a loft at Matchams. Topping up a roof void or lining a flat roof from inside adds no footprint to anything. It matters only if you are thinking of building out as well, and Dorset Council take that as a separate application.
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Get the whole envelope looked at, not just the loft
A free site visit that maps every void in the building, and an itemised written quote broken down by section rather than a single figure.