Insulation in Poole
Lofts, top floor flats, roof rooms and the solid walls behind the quay, surveyed first and priced in writing line by line.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
A third of the homes in Poole are flats, so the first question here is usually not what depth to lay but what part of the building is yours to insulate. We work that out on the first visit, then price the loft, the roof and the walls as separate lines so you can see which of them is worth doing.
Most calls come from one of three situations. A top floor flat that is cold in winter and unbearable in a heatwave, with a roof space above it nobody has opened in years. A thirties semi where the loft has an old thin layer between the joists and the bay at the front is the coldest corner of the house. And an older solid walled house near the quay where the heating never quite gets ahead of the building.
We come and look properly first. The site visit is free, the itemised written quote is free, and you get a straight answer about what will actually change how the place feels. Where the honest answer is that the loft is fine and the money belongs on a wall, a flat roof or the draughts, we will say so rather than sell you rolls.
The work
The little roof over the bay is the coldest bit
Flats, and working out what you actually own. A third of the homes in Poole are flats, and the town has both kinds: large older houses divided up, and purpose-built blocks. In a converted house the roof space is often reached from a communal landing rather than from inside your flat, and it may run over every flat on the top floor, which means the freeholder or the managing agent has to agree before anything goes in. In a purpose-built block there is frequently no loft at all, just a flat roof over a concrete or timber deck, and the only sensible time to insulate that is when the covering is being renewed. We are used to quoting in a form an agent can take to the leaseholders, and we will tell you at the visit which of those two you are in.
The thirties semis, and the roof over the bay. The 1930s is the single biggest decade of building here, and inter-war Poole is full of houses with a projecting bay and its own small flat or tiled roof over it. That little roof is usually the coldest and wettest detail in the building: it sits outside the loft, it rarely has anything in it, and the bedroom above the bay tells you so every January. Where the covering is being replaced it becomes a warm roof, with rigid board over the deck rather than pushed in underneath. The main loft is the ordinary job: straighten what is there, close the gaps, then an eco roll across the joists at right angles, between and over, to about 270mm finished, which is the depth a U-value of 0.16 asks for rather than the 250mm people remember.
The oldest streets behind the quay have solid brick walls with nothing to fill. Internal wall insulation is the practical route, on the coldest rooms first, in a build-up that lets vapour pass rather than trapping it, and detailed with real care where floor joists are built into the wall and around window reveals. The inter-war and post-war houses do have a cavity, and there the survey starts with a borescope to see whether anything is in it and whether the fill has slumped down the cavity. Where a loft has already been converted the insulation goes at rafter level, rigid PIR board cut tight between the rafters with a clear ventilation gap above and another layer under, taped so the vapour control layer is continuous; in a mansard with almost no depth to spare a multi-layer foil quilt such as TLX earns its place. Dormer cheeks and the small flat tops over them are where most of the heat actually goes.
Four in ten households in the town heat with electricity, on panel or storage heaters, and every unit of heat in them is bought at the dearest rate there is. That does not change the work, it changes the order of it. Heat loss through a top floor ceiling matters more in a flat heated that way than in the house next door on gas, so the depth over your head comes first. Seal the hatch, get the loft to full depth where there is one, deal with the draughts around the front door and the service risers, and take the sloping ceilings seriously, because in an electrically heated flat the fabric is the only thing standing between you and the meter.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Insulation inside a loft, at rafter level or on the inside of a wall is not development and needs no permission, which Planning Portal guidance on insulation confirms. The Town Centre Heritage conservation area covers much of the old town, and inside it cladding or external wall insulation needs an application; the council's list of conservation areas will tell you whether your address is in it. There are listed buildings in the town centre too, and the council's listed building records are where to start, because consent is needed for internal work as well. regulation 23 means renovating more than half of an element brings the whole of it up to the current standard. BCP Council handles both.
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 top floor flat where the hatch is on a shared landing is one morning; a block with a flat roof and no loft at all 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. Poole is minutes away, so usually the same day or the next. Outside Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm is by arrangement.
Worth knowing
In the conservation area, the outside of your wall is not your decision
The old town sits inside the Town Centre Heritage conservation area, and that changes one specific thing about insulation: what you are allowed to do to the outside face of a building. Inside, nothing is controlled. A loft, a sloping ceiling, an internal lining, a floor, all of it is between you and building control.
External wall insulation is another matter, because it thickens the wall, buries the reveals, changes the relationship between the windows and the face of the building and usually changes the material as well. In a conservation area that is a planning application rather than a free choice, and on a listed building it needs consent whether it is inside or out.
What we do about it is straightforward. If you are in the controlled streets, we plan the work from the inside out. The loft or the roof first, since it is the biggest single loss and nobody can object to it. Then the draughts, which on an old town house with sash windows and suspended floors are worth more than people expect. Then internal wall insulation on the rooms you actually live in, done in a breathable build-up so the wall can still dry inwards, rather than a sheet of foil-faced board slapped onto damp brick.
It takes a little room off each wall and it has to be detailed at the joist ends, which is exactly why it is worth having somebody set out on paper what goes where before anything is ordered. If external work really is the right answer for your building, we will tell you what the application would involve rather than pretend the rule is not there.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Poole, the old town and the quay, Hamworthy, Parkstone, Broadstone, Upton and the BH15 addresses around them, with BCP Council for planning and building control. Send us the postcode if you want to be sure before we come out.
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
Poole questions we get asked
Our house is in the Town Centre Heritage area. What is allowed?
Inside the building, essentially anything you like. The Town Centre Heritage conservation area in Poole controls what the street sees, so a like for like repair is maintenance and a change of external material is not. Loft insulation, floor insulation and internal lining are invisible from the pavement and need no application. External wall insulation is the one that gets refused, because it changes the face of the building, and on a terrace it changes the whole run.
A third of Poole homes are flats. Who authorises roof work?
The freeholder or the managing agent, not the top floor leaseholder. Flats make up 33.3% of the dwellings in Poole and in most blocks the roof void is retained under the lease, so a resident who wants it insulated has to get the instruction issued from above them. We are happy to survey and quote either way, but the order comes from whoever holds that void. Agreeing it first saves a wasted appointment.
A lot of homes here run on electric heating. Does that matter?
Electric heating makes the fabric worth more. Around 40.5% of households in Poole heat with electricity and almost none use oil, so the warmth in the room comes straight off the meter and every draught is paid for at that meter. It does not change how we insulate, but it changes the order of work: sealing and ceiling depth first, because they cut demand rather than move it. In a top floor flat the ceiling is the whole game.
Is underfloor insulation sensible in an older Poole terrace?
Sometimes, and the void underneath decides it. The ground under Poole is naturally wet, so a suspended floor in an older terrace often sits over damp with only a couple of airbricks moving air across it. Material packed tight against joist ends in that situation holds the damp there. We check the void first, clear or add airbricks, and use something that lets the timber dry. If the void is too shallow to work in, we say so.
Ours is a thirties semi. What is missing in the roof?
Depth, and usually the eaves as well. The 1930s are the biggest single period in Poole at 13.5%, and those roofs went on with no felt under the tiles and nothing over the ceiling until somebody added it later. That is not all bad, since an unfelted roof ventilates itself, but wind blows through loose wool if it is not held down properly. We fit two crossed layers and deal with the tank and pipework in the same visit.
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Want to know which part of the building is losing the heat?
We will look at the roof space, the walls and the draughts, measure what is already there, and put the options in writing. The visit and the quote are both free.