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.
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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, not 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.
Heat loss in Matchams usually centres on extensions, flat roofs and outbuildings. 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, not 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 condensation is most likely to show out in Matchams. 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
Insulating walls, roofs and outbuildings
Thomas carries out the survey himself: into the loft, round the walls, and into any outbuilding you want warmer. He writes the quote with the material, its depth, ventilation and disposal on separate lines, and that one quote covers the work.
We board a path across the joists, bag old material where it lies, and clean up after. A roof leak, wiring that is unsafe or damp timber found on the survey is noted with a picture and a separate figure. On an exposed plot we also look at how the wind drives through the eaves, because a loft needs air moving through it but not a gale that blows the insulation back from the edges.
Putting insulation into a loft, or lining a wall from inside, is not something you need planning permission for, and Planning Portal guidance on insulation marks the limits. Cladding the outside of a wall is where the guidance on external walls comes in. Matchams has no conservation area to complicate that, though a listed house would. Building control takes an interest once a whole wall or roof is being renovated, or a garage or workshop is turned into living space. Dorset Council is the authority for both. On a home that already exists, HMRC charges no VAT on the insulation, as HMRC Notice 708/6 explains.
Cost
What sets the cost of insulating out here
The area is the simple bit. The awkward parts around it take the time. Which part of the building. A loft over the house with a hatch in the hall is often a single day. A garage or workshop with no ceiling needs a ceiling boarded in, or insulation fixed between the rafters, before it can hold heat, which is a bigger job.
What is up there already. Old quilt, loose boards and stored boxes all have to be moved, bagged or lifted before anything new goes down, and anything you want to keep storing has to go back on raised boards.
Walls. A borescope shows whether you have a clear cavity or a solid wall. On the faces that take driven rain, a filled cavity can carry water across, so the pointing and any render have to be sound before filling.
Ventilation. The eaves have to stay clear so the roof can breathe, and trays or baffles keep the insulation in place where the wind comes through.
The standard the finished work has to meet is set by Approved Document L. When comparing quotes, find out how deep each one is laying, whether the old quilt is being taken out, and whether trays at the eaves and an insulated hatch are part of the price.
If it is urgent
Condensation, mould or a room that will not warm up
Most insulation work can be booked in, but some things should not sit: a loft where the felt drips, mould returning on a bedroom ceiling every winter, or one room that stays cold whatever the heating does. Ring the number below about this.
On that visit we work out whether the answer is more insulation, more air, or both, because packing insulation into a roof that cannot breathe only moves the damp onto the timbers. We are about five and a half miles from Matchams. Planned work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. A missed call from you is returned as soon as we are free.
Worth knowing
No conservation area here, 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, which is uncommon enough on our side of Dorset to be worth saying out loud, though the Historic England list is still worth a check for your own address.
It means that on an ordinary house here, external wall insulation is normally permitted development if the new finish looks similar to the existing walls, though a visibly different finish can need planning permission. 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.
External insulation in Matchams still catches people out, starting at 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.
Planning is the other catch, because this is open countryside with Green Belt over it, so while a thermal upgrade to an existing house normally needs no application, a new outbuilding or an extension usually does, 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, before the scaffold is up.
Who you are dealing with
Who carries out the insulation survey
Thomas Hannen owns the business, and he does the survey and writes the price himself. At about five and a half miles from our Boscombe base, Matchams sits inside the area we cover, along with the lanes each side of it, St Leonards, St Ives, Ashley Heath and Hurn on BH24, and out through Ringwood, Verwood and Christchurch.
Planning and building control here are Dorset Council's. Our company: Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Checkatrade records a verified customer's 10 out of 10. No charge for the survey or for the written quote. Before you book a visit in Matchams, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Matchams?
Most repairs in Matchams 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 Matchams |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Matchams. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Matchams, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Nothing in Matchams is on the statutory list, so listed building consent does not come into it. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Matchams. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in Matchams
There is no conservation area here. Does that make anything simpler?
Yes, Matchams having no conservation area removes a whole layer of asking. That is unusual on this patch, and unless your own house is listed, loft and roof work is normally permitted development, provided any new outside finish looks similar to the existing house.
That means we can pick mostly on performance and on what fits the roof. Dorset Council come into it if you change the shape of the building or give it a visibly different finish.
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, not 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 there is no conservation area, so on an unlisted house 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.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Matchams
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Free quote
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.