Insulation in Redlynch
Loft top-ups, rafter level board work and breathable wall build-ups, priced from a proper look rather than a guess at the area.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
A solid wall has no cavity to fill and needs a different build-up altogether, which is why the loft is only half the answer on the older Redlynch houses. It is still the first job on almost every one of them. We measure what is really in the roof, look at what the walls are made of, and put the depth and the method in writing before anything is ordered.
Three sorts of call come out of this village. A bungalow where the heating runs most of the day in January and the ceilings still feel cold to stand under. An old cottage on the lane where somebody has been told the walls can be filled, on a house that has no cavity in it to fill. And a family who have boarded the loft out for storage and now want to know whether anything useful survived under the chipboard.
None of those is fixed by ordering more material. The site visit is a proper look: a probe into the existing layer so we know the depth rather than guess it, a check on whether the quilt only sits between the joists, whether the eaves are open or packed solid, where the tank and the pipe runs sit, and what the ceiling underneath is actually made of. The itemised written quote comes off the back of that, with the method on it as well as the figure.
The work
On a bungalow the ceiling is as big as the floor
Bungalows, where the ceiling is the whole roof. Close to a third of what stands here is single storey, and on a bungalow the cold ceiling is the same area as the floor you live on. That makes the loft worth more per pound spent than it is on a two-storey house, and it makes the edges matter, because a trussed roof pinches down to nothing where it meets the wall plate. Getting full depth into that last half metre, with a vent tray holding the airway open above it, is the part that gets skipped and the part you feel in the rooms below.
Better than a quarter of the village predates 1919, and those roof spaces are small, irregular and often over lath and plaster that will not carry a person's weight. We crawl on boards laid across the joists, and the joists are rarely at a spacing any roll was made for, so mineral wool is cut to fit rather than pushed in and left to spring back. Where the ceiling is lime plaster on lath we keep the build-up breathable rather than sealing a vapour barrier over a ceiling that has been drying upward for a century.
On the post-war houses it is between and over: mineral wool between the joists, then an eco roll straight across the top at right angles. A renovated thermal element is expected to reach a U-value of 0.16, which in ordinary mineral wool is closer to 270mm than the 250 people remember. The later houses have a cavity wall, and a borescope tells us in minutes whether it is clear, already filled or slumped. On the solid-walled cottages there is nothing to fill, so it is internal wall insulation on the coldest rooms, built to breathe, or external wall insulation where the elevation can carry it, which changes how the house looks, so read the Planning Portal on external walls first. Where a roof space here has already become a room in roof there is nothing to roll out, so it is PIR between the rafters with a clear air gap above, a multi-layer quilt such as TLX under a sloping ceiling with no depth to give, and the dormer cheeks done at the same time.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Laying quilt in a loft or lining a wall on the inside needs no planning permission. The Planning Portal sets out where that stops, which is usually the day insulation goes on the outside of the wall. Building control is engaged once a thermal element is renovated or the loft becomes a room, and regulation 23 sets what a renovated element has to reach. Wiltshire Council is the authority here, and there are a dozen listed entries around the village, so if yours is one consent can reach inside as well as out and other permissions you may require is the place to start. Insulation fitted in an existing home is zero rated for VAT under HMRC VAT 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 post-war bungalow with the hatch on a landing ceiling and a truss right under it is one morning; a flint cottage reached through a small opening over the stairs 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. Redlynch is a straight run up the Avon valley for us. Outside Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm is by arrangement.
Worth knowing
Old walls here have to be allowed to dry
Something like a quarter of the houses in the parish were built before 1900, and those walls were never designed to keep water out the way a cavity does. They take rain in, hold it in the thickness of the wall, and give it back to the air on the next dry day. That works as long as nothing stops the drying.
Line the inside of a wall like that with the wrong build-up, seal a plastic sheet across it, and the moisture that used to come out of the room side now has nowhere to go. It collects at the coldest point, which is usually behind the new insulation where you cannot see it, and the first you know is a musty smell or a patch of damp appearing at skirting level.
So on the old stock here we build up in materials that let vapour through: wood fibre or a similar breathable board bedded in a lime based adhesive rather than foam and foil, and lime plaster over it rather than gypsum. It is less insulation per inch than a rigid board, which is an honest trade and we will say it out loud.
We also start with the cheaper things in the right order: get the loft to full depth, sort the draughts around the openings, make sure the gutters and the ground are not feeding the base of the wall, and then decide room by room whether internal insulation is worth doing at all. On many of these cottages the two coldest rooms are worth lining and the rest are not.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Redlynch, Woodfalls, Lover and Downton on SP5, out across the Avon valley and along the western edge of the forest, and Wiltshire 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
Redlynch questions we get asked
Can a solid walled cottage here be insulated at all?
It can, but only with a build up that lets the wall dry out. 27.7% of Redlynch predates 1919 and those walls went up solid, with no cavity, so they shed the water they take in by evaporating it through the surface. Put a plastic backed board and gypsum on the inside face and the water stops at that line instead. We use a breathable board bedded in lime, and sort the outside pointing first.
Wiltshire is a different council. Does that change the rules?
Not the rules themselves, only who you ask. Redlynch falls under Wiltshire Council rather than Dorset or Hampshire, and the twelve listed entries in the parish are the only properties where consent is likely to be needed for fabric work. No conservation area covers Redlynch. Internal insulation on an ordinary house counts as maintenance whichever authority you are in, and needs nothing from anybody before it starts.
The floors are cold and the ground is heavy. What helps?
Underfloor draughts, usually, more than the floor build up itself. Redlynch sits on naturally wet ground, so a suspended timber floor over that void has to keep breathing and the airbricks stay open whatever else is done. We seal the gaps between the boards and at the skirting, then fit material between the joists that will not hold water against the timber. On an old floor that combination does more than either part alone.
Detached houses out here take wind on every side. Does that count?
It counts at the corners and the openings. Detached houses are 42.0% of Redlynch and a detached house has no neighbour sheltering any elevation, so the exposed south west face takes driven rain that a terrace would be partly shielded from. A wet wall reads cold from inside however deep the ceiling above it is. Where a room is cold on that side we look at the wall and the rainwater goods before quoting roof work.
Is a cottage loft here a single day of work?
Most are, once the ladder is up and the bales are inside. What stretches it out is a low collar roof you cannot stand up in, a strip out of old material that has to be bagged, or a run of eaves needing trays fitted one bay at a time. An old Redlynch cottage roof usually has at least one of those in it. The quote says which, so the day is booked honestly rather than optimistically.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Redlynch
Insulation nearby
Our other trades in Redlynch
Everything we do in Ringwood Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Find out what is really in your loft
A free site visit, a probe into the existing layer, and an itemised written quote that gives you the depth and the method as well as the price.