Insulation in Stone

Insulated at build, never touched since. Much of the housing here dates from the eighties and after, and those roofs were finished with a single layer laid between the joists. It is usually dry and usually worth keeping. What it is not is deep enough. We add a second layer of mineral wool, an eco roll running at right angles across the joists, between and over, which brings the depth up and takes the timber itself out of the heat path, and we deal with the perimeter properly instead of stopping a foot short of it the way the original layer almost always does.

Cavity walls of that generation were often built partial fill, with a board fixed against the inner leaf and a clear gap left in front of it, which is a different animal from an empty cavity and changes what can sensibly be blown in later. It needs a borescope and a look at the top of the wall, not an assumption: what is in there, how much clear space is left, and whether the wall is dry. Where a full fill would bridge to the outer leaf on an exposed elevation we say no, and we would rather say it before you pay for it.

Rooms over garages. A third of the homes here are flats and the rest run to houses with a room over the garage or above an open porch, and those are the coldest rooms in this sort of house. The reason is under the carpet rather than over the ceiling: a heated floor sitting on top of an unheated space with nothing in it. We insulate between the floor joists, from the garage side where the ceiling allows and by lifting boards where it does not, and we close the cold bridge at the edge where that floor runs out over the wall below. It is a half day that changes a room people had given up on.

On the Pamphill side it is brick and flint under a heavy roof, solid walls with no cavity to fill, and eaves that come down low enough that depth runs out exactly where you want it. Vent trays hold the airway open and rigid board goes in at the perimeter where a roll will not fit. Any internal wall insulation on a wall like that has to be vapour open, a breathable board with a lime finish, or you move the damp rather than remove it. Where an attic has been converted into a room in roof it is rigid board again: PIR such as Celotex between the rafters with a clear air gap kept 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. Then the loft's own details: lagging on the pipe runs above the new layer and a raised deck where boarding and storage go back.

No rate per square metre. An estate cottage with a hatch on a half landing, a house from the eighties with a trussed loft and a ladder already fitted, and a room over a garage where we work from underneath are three different days before a roll is opened. 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 going down, whether the old layer is removed or covered, and whether the eaves are being kept clear.

We cover Stone and Pamphill, Wimborne Minster, Furzehill, Cowgrove and Shapwick on BH21 and out along the Stour, and Dorset 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.