Insulation in Swanage
Loft work over old cut roofs, whole roof spaces done at once above converted flats, and breathable linings on stone walls.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Before anything is priced in Swanage, settle what is really above the ceiling, and who owns it. In a house that is a morning with a torch and a rule. In a flat it is also a question about the lease. We sort out both on a free visit and quote from what we find.
Swanage homes lose their heat in the old town terraces, the top floor flats and the bungalows up the hill. A stone terrace in the old town that costs a fortune to warm and has a cold room at the back. A top floor flat where the heat goes straight up and the bill makes no sense. And a bungalow up the hill with a loft that was done once and has been storage ever since.
None of those is fixed by ordering more material. What each needs is somebody up there first: the real depth of what is in place once the top is lifted, whether the eaves are open or were closed up when the roof was last done, what the ceiling below will actually take, what the walls are built of, and where the tank and the pipe runs sit. The written itemised quote comes off the back of that, with the ventilation work on its own line, not folded into a single figure.
The work
The lath and plaster will not take a knee
The lath and plaster will not take a knee. More than a quarter of the housing in Swanage predates 1919, and those roofs are cut rather than trussed: purlins, struts down onto the ceiling joists, and often nothing under the slates but the slates.
The roof space already breathes through a hundred small gaps, which is why the ceilings below have got away with a thin layer for so long, and the lath and plaster underneath will not take a knee anywhere except on the timber. So it is careful work: mineral wool laid between and over, the second layer at right angles so no joist bridges the cold, boards run for footing, and nothing rested on a ceiling that was never built to hold it.
One roof space, several flats. Flats are the commonest home in Swanage at 38.7%, and a house converted into flats usually still has one continuous loft over the lot of it. Insulating only the part above your own rooms leaves a cold path over the ceilings either side, and heat finds it. Where we are allowed to do the whole plane at once it is a better job and a cheaper one per flat, because the access, the clearing out and the disposal are paid for once instead of three times. Where we can only do part, we say so and we close the edge properly and never leave a ragged stop.
Solid stone and rendered walls have nothing to fill and stay sound by drying out through their faces. An internal lining on one has to be vapour open, a wood fibre or mineral board finished in lime, never a sealed plastic sandwich. The sea is right on the doorstep here and the weather comes from the south west, so where a hard cement render has been put on a seaward elevation and is holding water in the wall, insulating the inside of it without dealing with that first is how damp appears in a room that was dry.
The post-war housing does have cavities and a good many are still empty. Each one gets a borescope and a look at the outer leaf first, because this is exposed ground for driven rain and a full fill is not automatically right on an elevation taking weather off the sea. Where it does not stand up, we would rather tell you than sell it.
The town is full of third storeys in the roof, and where the attic is a room there is no loft to work in. That is rigid board: PIR such as Celotex between the rafters with a clear air gap kept above it, a foil faced board fixed under the rafters to break the cold bridge, 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 with it. If the covering is coming off anyway, a warm roof built above the rafters is the better answer and the access is already paid for. An insulated hatch, fire rated covers over downlighters, lagging kept on the tank, and vent trays holding the eaves airway open finish it.
How it runs
Insulating a roof, a flat or a solid stone wall
Tell us what you are trying to fix: a cold top floor flat, a loft with a thin layer of old wool, or a solid stone wall that is freezing to the touch. Thomas comes out, goes into the loft or looks at the wall, checks for damp and ventilation first, and prices it himself.
The quote itemises clearing and bagging old material, the insulation type and its depth or thickness, ventilation at the eaves, boarding, work around pipes and cables, and disposal. In a converted villa the loft may be shared, so the freeholder or agent has a say, and materials come up through the communal stairs. Dust sheets go down from the door to the hatch, and nothing is left open or unusable overnight. A loft that turns out to be wet, or a damp wall, is photographed and explained to you before anything goes in.
Insulating a loft or lining a wall inside is an improvement, not development, as the Planning Portal explains. External wall insulation is where planning comes in, and inside the Swanage conservation area it is not permitted development. Building control is engaged once a thermal element is renovated. With so many listed buildings in the town, listed building consent reaches internal linings too, and Dorset Council holds the record.
Cost
What decides the cost of insulating an older home
No sensible quote here is a rate per square metre, because the house decides the work. Which part of the house. A loft is the quickest win. A solid stone wall cannot be cavity filled, so it is lined inside with insulated plasterboard or breathable wood fibre, which means taking off skirting, sockets and window boards and putting them back.
Getting in. A stone terrace with a hatch on a half landing and a lath and plaster ceiling below, a hillside bungalow with one wide loft, and a top floor flat off a communal landing are three different days before a roll of mineral wool is opened.
Moisture. Salt air and south westerly rain keep old walls damp. Solid walls need breathable materials and a clear route out for moisture, or the insulation becomes a damp problem. Loft ventilation at the eaves is kept open, as Approved Document F expects.
The standard. Approved Document L sets the U-value the finished work has to reach, and on a thin stone wall that decides the thickness.
Ask any other quote what depth or thickness is going in, whether the old layer is being removed, and how the eaves and damp are being handled.
If it is urgent
Condensation, mould or a room that will not warm up
A loft running with condensation, black mould coming back on a wall, or a room that never holds heat usually has a cause that can be found. Ring if water is dripping onto a ceiling.
The first visit finds out whether it is a roof leak, missing insulation or trapped damp air, and until then keep the room aired and wipe the worst down. Nothing is added until the cause is clear, because insulating a space that cannot breathe makes it worse. Scheduled work is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For something wet, phone us, and if it rings out we call back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
In a flat, the first question is who owns the roof space
Close to four in ten homes in Swanage are flats, in converted houses and in purpose built blocks, and that changes the first conversation rather than the work itself. If you are on the top floor, the ceiling is normally yours and the roof space above it normally is not: it is usually retained by the freeholder as part of the structure, and your lease is what says so.
We are glad to quote for a leaseholder, a freeholder, a managing agent or a residents' company, but we need to know which of those we are dealing with before anything is booked, because whoever owns the roof space is the one who has to agree to work in it. Ten minutes with the lease saves a wasted visit.
Where a freeholder or an agent is doing it as major works and the cost is recharged to leaseholders, section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 sets out the consultation that has to happen first, with notices and a chance for leaseholders to nominate a contractor. That is not our procedure, it is the law, and the law sets the timetable, not us.
What we can do is write the quote so it drops straight into that process: every line separate, the depth and the method visible, the ventilation work priced on its own, so the people being asked to pay can see exactly what they are paying for. Where the roof space is genuinely demised to a single flat, it is an ordinary day's work and none of the above applies.
Who you are dealing with
Who insulates your home across Purbeck
We come from 80a Wolverton Road in Boscombe, 10 miles from Swanage, and insulate homes across Swanage and Herston, Langton Matravers, Corfe Castle, Studland and the rest of Purbeck on BH19. Dorset Council is the planning and building control authority here.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns it and is the person who goes up the ladder to price your loft or wall. You can read a verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Coming out is free, and so is the quote, itemised and in writing. Before you book a visit in Swanage, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Swanage?
Most repairs in Swanage 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 Swanage |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Swanage. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Swanage Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Swanage. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Dorset National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in Swanage
Does sea air get at anything inside the roof?
Yes, sea air gets at the metal inside the roof. Swanage faces straight onto the bay and salt keeps surfaces damp between showers, so nails, clips and any steel up there corrode from the edge inwards. Insulation itself does not mind salt, but packing a void tight with no clear air path traps that damp against the fixings. Ventilation at the eaves matters more on this side of Purbeck than it does inland.
Can our pre-1900 stone cottage be lined without trapping damp?
It can, using materials that let the wall dry inwards. Around 21.3% of Swanage homes predate 1900 and 28.2% predate 1919, so solid walled stone cottages are the norm here, not the exception. Those walls get wet and shed the water again through both faces. A foam board sealed to the plaster stops that, and moisture then collects at the bond line where you cannot see it.
The ground floor is damp every winter. Is insulation sensible?
Deal with the water first: Swanage carries a high surface water flood band and heavy ground that holds moisture, so a floor sitting in a wet slab stays wet whatever goes over the top of it. Once the drainage and the external ground level are sorted out, a floor build up makes sense. Laying it over damp simply moves the condensation to a new surface and hides it from view.
Which elevation do you deal with first?
The south west one: that face carries the weather off the bay, so wind and rain work at the edges, the reveals and the eaves rather than at the middle of a wall. Heat leaves quickest where air is being driven through, not where the masonry happens to be thinnest. Doing that elevation properly and leaving the sheltered sides until later usually beats doing all four of them thinly.
There are a lot of listed buildings. Are we likely listed?
There are 129 listed entries in Swanage, Newton Manor among them, so it is worth checking rather than assuming either way. Listing covers the individual building, and where it applies it reaches internal work as well as the outside, so lining a wall or altering a ceiling needs consent from Dorset Council. Swanage also has a conservation area, and Herston another, but that controls the outside, so on an unlisted house an internal lining or loft insulation faces nothing on that front.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Swanage
Nearby places we also cover for insulation, with straight-line distances from Swanage, and the other trades we offer in Swanage itself.
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Our other trades in Swanage
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?Everything we do in Swanage Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
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Start with a look above the ceiling
A free site visit in Swanage, a rule put in whatever is already up there, and a written itemised quote clear enough to hand to a freeholder or an agent.