Insulation in Ringwood
Loft top-ups, rafter level board work and honest advice on walls and leases, priced after a proper look rather than over the phone.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Before we quote anything in Ringwood we need to know one thing: is the roof over you yours to work on. A house, and it is a straightforward morning in the loft. A flat or a maisonette, and the roof space may belong to the freeholder, which changes who orders the work and who pays for it. We sort that out at the free site visit, then price the job properly in writing.
The calls come in three shapes. Somebody in a top floor flat whose living room never gets warm and whose neighbours below are perfectly comfortable. An owner in one of the terraced rows who can feel a draught coming down through the hatch. And a family on one of the estates off the edge of town who have had the loft since the house was new and want to know whether what is up there still counts for anything.
The survey answers that with a probe rather than a look. How deep the layer measures, whether it stops at the joists or goes over them, whether the eaves are open or packed solid, what the ceiling below is made of, and where the warm damp air from the house is getting up into the roof. You get the findings and an itemised written quote with the depth and the method on it, and nothing is ordered until you say so.
The work
In a terrace the party wall often stops short
Top floor flats first. Flats are the biggest single type in this town at 28.7%, and the person who feels the cold in a block is nearly always the one at the top, because they have a whole roof over them and everyone else has a neighbour. Where there is a loft above the top flat the work is ordinary enough: mineral wool between and over the joists to full depth, the hatch insulated and sealed, the tank jacketed and the pipe runs lagged. Where the block has a flat roof instead there is no void worth filling, and the honest answer is that the insulation belongs on top of the deck as a warm roof, next time the covering is renewed.
The wall between the lofts. Terraces and semis together make up close to two fifths of the housing here, and in a row the party wall often stops short of the tiles or is left open around the trusses, so dust, draught and cold move freely from one roof space to the next. We take the quilt tight up to the face of that wall rather than stopping a foot away, and where the separating wall has gaps in it that is a matter for building control as much as comfort, so we flag it rather than bury it under a roll.
Nearly 30% of the town went up between 1983 and 2008 on trussed rafters, insulated to whatever the standard was that year and left alone since. That material settles, thins at the perimeter and parts along the joist lines. We lay between and over, adding an eco roll across the top at right angles so no joist is left as a cold bridge. The target is the finished ceiling and not the label on the bag: a renovated thermal element is expected to reach a U-value of 0.16, which in ordinary quilt is nearer 270mm than the 250 most people picture.
Plenty of houses here have had a room put in the roof, and a room in roof is insulated at rafter level, which is different work with different materials. PIR rigid board such as Celotex cut between the rafters with a clear air gap above it, a foil faced board across the underside to kill the cold bridge at every rafter, or a multi-layer quilt like TLX where a dormer ceiling will not give the height up. The knee wall voids behind the eaves cupboards are the part that gets left out, and they undo the rest.
The later houses have a cavity, and a borescope tells us in minutes whether it is clear, already filled, or slumped and leaving a cold band across the top of the elevation. Nearer the centre the older brick houses are solid walled with nothing to fill, so it is internal wall insulation on the coldest rooms in a build-up that still lets the wall dry, and with 61 listed entries around the market place that question is often settled before the technical one is asked. Then the details a cheap quote leaves off: fire rated covers over downlighters, boarding put back on legs, holes round pipes closed at ceiling level, and vent trays at the eaves.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote comes back itemised, so you can compare it against anyone else's. Insulating a loft or lining a wall on the inside is an improvement rather than development, so it sits inside permitted development, and the Planning Portal sets out where that stops. Building control is engaged once a thermal element is renovated or the roof becomes a room, and regulation 23 sets what the finished element has to reach. New Forest District Council is the authority here, and with 61 listed entries in the town other permissions you may require is worth reading if yours is one, because consent reaches inside as well as out. Insulation 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. A top floor flat reached off a communal stair with a small hatch on the landing, a terrace with the ladder over the stairwell, and a detached on the estates with a boarded loft are three different mornings before a roll comes off the van. Old material that has to be bagged and taken away is a cost before anything new goes down. Approved Document L sets what the finished work has to reach. Ask any quote what depth is being laid, whether the old layer is removed or covered, and whether the hatch and pipework are in.
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 looked at quickly. The first visit tells you whether it is insulation, ventilation or both. Ringwood is a straight run up the A31, so that is usually the same week. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
If you own a flat, the roof over you may not be yours
Nearly three homes in ten in this town are flats, and that changes the insulation question before any material is discussed. In most leases the roof and the roof space are retained by the freeholder, not demised to the top floor flat, so the top floor leaseholder cannot simply instruct a contractor to go up there, even though they are the one paying to heat the ceiling.
The first thing to do is read the lease, or ask the managing agent for the plan attached to it, and find out whether the loft is inside your demise or outside it. In a house converted into two or three flats it often is inside. In a purpose built block it usually is not.
Where the freeholder is the one who has to do it, the cost normally comes back to the leaseholders through the service charge, and once any one leaseholder's share of a job passes £250 the landlord has to consult properly first under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
That is not a reason to give up, it is a reason to start early: a written specification saying what depth is going in, what is happening at the eaves and what the hatches are getting is exactly what a managing agent needs in order to consult on it. We are happy to price it that way for a block rather than a single flat. In the meantime the things inside your own front door are still yours to do, and draughtproofing, a sealed and insulated hatch where you have one, and lining the coldest external wall all help while the bigger question is sorted out.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Ringwood, Poulner, Hangersley and Ashley Heath on BH24, out through Ferndown, Fordingbridge and down to Christchurch, and New Forest District 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
Ringwood questions we get asked
I am in a top floor flat. Who has to agree to the work?
The freeholder or the managing agent, in most cases, because the roof void above a top floor flat is usually common parts rather than yours. Flats are 28.7% of Ringwood's stock, so this comes up here far more often than it does in the villages around the town. Get the lease checked first. Once somebody with authority has said yes, the job itself is a morning's work in a small void.
Ringwood has no conservation area. Does that make consent simpler?
For most houses it does. There is no area designation controlling how the streets look, so nothing about the appearance of your roof is restricted on those grounds. What does bite is the 61 listed entries in Ringwood, the Meeting House and the Manor House among them. Listing follows the individual building rather than the road it stands on, so a neighbour being listed says nothing about you.
Would a loft conversion here trigger the Avon nutrient rules?
It can. The River Avon catchment rules engage where a scheme adds overnight accommodation, so turning a Ringwood loft into a bedroom brings them in while insulating the same loft does not. If you are only laying quilt between and over the joists, nothing is added and nothing is triggered. If you are building a room, settle the nutrient position with New Forest District before ordering materials.
Why is the top floor of our Victorian terrace the coldest?
Because the ceiling above you is the only thing between the bedroom and outside air, and in pre-1900 terraces the joists are shallow, so whatever was laid up there is thin. Around 13.0% of homes in the town were built before 1900. On a terrace the party walls also run up into the void and pull heat off the plaster, which is why the corner rooms feel worst.
What do you actually look at in the loft?
Depth first, measured against the joist tops rather than guessed at from the hatch. Then the eaves gap, because in the older Ringwood stock the felt often runs tight to the wall plate and blocks the air path. After that the hatch itself, any downlights coming through the ceiling, the cold water tank and the pipe runs. I write down what is there and what is missing before pricing.
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Find out what is really over your ceiling
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.