Insulation in Sopley

Lofts under a trussed roof. Where a Sopley house has a trussed loft, it is thin timbers in a W pattern every couple of feet, none of which can be cut, and just enough room to work in if you know where to put your feet.

Roofs like that were usually finished with a thin quilt laid one way between the joists, and it has been walked on and stored on ever since. We keep what is sound, take out what has been compressed beyond use, and bring the whole space up to depth with mineral wool laid between and over, the second layer running across the timbers so no truss carries cold straight through the ceiling.

Where your loft actually stops. Where a house shares a roof line with next door, the wall between one loft and the next does not always carry on up to the underside of the roof. Sometimes it does, sometimes it stops at ceiling height with a fire barrier above it. Either way the top of that wall is a cold path if nothing is done to it, and it is the edge that gets skipped because it does not look like the outside of the house. We insulate up to it properly and we do not cut, squash or work past a fire barrier to save ourselves a job.

Where a house here was built with a cavity, it may still have nothing in it, which makes the walls the biggest single thing left to do once the loft is right. It is a borescope job before it is a quote: what the cavity measures, whether anybody filled it in an earlier scheme, and whether that fill has settled and left the top of the wall bare. Where an old fill has bridged and is carrying damp across, more material is the wrong answer and we will tell you so rather than sell it.

Where a house has picked up a rear extension, the join is where the heat goes: a flat roof deck with an inch of board in it, and a cold bridge where the new wall meets the old one. If that roof is being recovered anyway, a warm roof with rigid board above the deck is the right build-up and far cheaper done while the covering is off.

At the village end, inside the Sopley conservation area, there are houses with solid walls and no cavity to fill, where an internal lining has to be vapour open and finished in lime rather than sealed up tight, and there are converted attics with no loft left to work in. Those are rigid board jobs: PIR such as Celotex between the rafters with a clear air gap kept above it, a foil faced board fixed under the rafters, or a multi-layer quilt like TLX where a sloping ceiling has no depth to give away. Dormer cheeks and the voids behind the knee walls are done at the same time. Add an insulated hatch, covers over the downlighters, lagging on the tank, and vent trays at the eaves.

The loft itself sets the job. A trussed roof on a terrace with a small hatch on the landing, a bungalow with one wide open loft, and a cottage where the roof pinches down to head height at the wall plate are each priced on their own terms. Bungalows have a big loft for their floor area, which means more material but easier access.

What is already there. Old compressed mineral wool that is damp or dirty has to be bagged and removed before anything new goes down. Clean, dry wool can stay and be topped up across the joists.

Walls. A cavity that is clear and dry can be filled. One that was filled badly, or one on the side exposed to the south west wind, needs checking with a borescope first. A solid wall on an older cottage can only be lined inside or insulated outside, which is a larger job.

Ventilation. Adding insulation without keeping the eaves clear moves the problem into the timbers. Eaves vents and trays are a separate line.

Approved Document L sets the U-value the finished work has to reach. Ask any quote what depth is going down, whether the old material is being removed, and whether the eaves are being kept clear.

We cover Sopley, Bransgore, Thorney Hill, Burley and the Ringwood East side of BH23, and down into Christchurch. Sopley sits 3.7 miles north east of our base in Boscombe, and planning and building control sit with New Forest District Council.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen, whose business it is, goes up into your loft and prices the job. Checkatrade lists a verified customer's score for us of 10 out of 10. The survey visit is free, as is the written quote with every item listed. Before you book a visit in Sopley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Sopley 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.