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.
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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.
Poole homes that need insulating usually fit a familiar pattern. 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, not 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, not 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 and does not trap 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.
Where a Poole home heats with electricity, on panel or storage heaters, every unit of heat in it 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
Insulating a flat, house or bungalow in Poole
Thomas comes out, looks in the loft, checks the walls and the floors, and tells you which of them is worth insulating first. The quote is itemised: the survey, clearing old material, the insulation for each area and its depth or thickness, ventilation, making good and waste. You speak to Thomas throughout.
Poole has a lot of flats, so the job is often a top floor flat where the hatch is on a shared landing, or a block with a flat roof and no loft at all. In those cases the freeholder may need to agree. In a semi or bungalow with a loft, the work is done from inside, with dust sheets on the landing and old material bagged and taken away. Damp timbers or blocked ventilation found on the day are photographed and priced for you to decide on.
Insulating a loft or lining an inside wall needs no planning permission, as Planning Portal guidance on insulation says. External wall insulation or cladding changes the look of a wall, so if you live near the town centre, look your street up on the council conservation area page. Listed buildings need consent even for inside work, and BCP listed building records say which houses are listed. Under regulation 23, renovating more than half of an element brings all of it up to the current standard. BCP Council handles planning and building control.
Cost
Every home insulates differently, and costs differently
Insulation in Poole has no rate per square metre. The area is the easy part, and everything round it is the awkward part.
What kind of home. A top floor flat with the hatch on a shared landing may be a morning's work. A block with a flat roof has no loft, so the insulation goes in when the roof is re-covered. A bungalow has a big loft for its floor area, and an inter-war semi may have solid walls that cannot be filled.
What is already there. Old, thin or damp material may need bagging and removing. Boarding may have to be lifted and put back. Boxes stored in the loft need moving before anything new goes down.
Which material. Mineral wool in the loft, cavity fill, internal lining with insulated plasterboard and external insulation all cost different amounts. Approved Document L sets the U-value the work has to reach.
Ventilation. The eaves must stay clear, and a flat or a bathroom may need better extraction so moisture does not build up behind the new insulation.
Ask other quotes what depth is being laid, whether the old material comes out, and whether the eaves and the hatch are included.
If it is urgent
Condensation, mould or a room that will not warm up
A loft dripping with condensation, mould that keeps coming back, or a room that will not hold heat should be looked at soon. It is not an emergency in the way a leak is, but it gets worse through winter. It is better to ring than use the form.
On the first visit we work out whether the cause is insulation, ventilation or both, because adding insulation to a space that cannot breathe makes it worse. In a flat, it is worth checking first that the damp is not a neighbour's leak. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If something needs attention now, phone us; if nobody answers, we return the call as soon as we can.
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 cheapest to fix 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, and not pretend the rule is not there.
Who you are dealing with
Insulation across Poole town, from a Boscombe firm
We are 6.7 miles from Poole town, in Boscombe. We insulate flats and houses across Baiter, Longfleet, Hamworthy and Parkstone, and out in Broadstone and Upton, and BCP Council handles planning and building control. It is Thomas Hannen's business, and Thomas comes out and prices each job himself after looking in the loft.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. We have 10 out of 10 from a verified Checkatrade customer. We charge nothing to visit and nothing for an itemised quote in writing. Before you book a visit in Poole, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Poole?
Most repairs in Poole 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 Poole |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Poole. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Town Centre Heritage Conservation Area, Poole Park Conservation Area and Heckford Park Conservation Area, among others. They cover parts of Poole, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Poole. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Poole. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in Poole
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.
Our home runs on electric heating. Does that matter?
Electric heating makes the fabric worth more. The warmth in the room comes straight off the meter at the dearest rate there is, so every draught in a Poole flat or house heated that way 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.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Poole
Nearby places we also cover for insulation, with straight-line distances from Poole, and the other trades we offer in Poole itself.
Insulation nearby
Our other trades in Poole
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?Builders in Poole: all our building work Everything we do in Poole Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
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.