Insulation in Three Legged Cross
Loft, rafter, cavity and converted garage insulation for the seventies and eighties homes in the village, surveyed before it is priced.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Almost everything in Three Legged Cross was built between the sixties and the end of the eighties, so most houses here have a real loft above them and a real cavity in the walls. That makes the common job a straightforward one: a second layer over the joists, usually a day. The awkward work in this village is the space that was never meant to be lived in, the garage or the outbuilding somebody has since brought inside the heated part of the house.
People ring about three things. A loft they have looked into and found half empty, with the original layer flattened under years of boxes. A converted garage or annexe that is freezing in January whatever you point at it. Or one cold room, usually at the end of the house or under a sloping ceiling, that never keeps up with the rest.
So we look before we price. We get into the roof space and put a rule into what is already there rather than guessing at it, check whether the eaves are open and the ventilation path still works, find the tank and the pipe runs, and borescope an outside wall so we can see what is in the cavity instead of assuming.
In a converted garage we look at the roof build-up, the walls and the floor separately, because they usually need three different answers. Then you get a written itemised quote with the method on it as well as the number.
The work
We borescope a cavity before anyone quotes a fill
Top-ups in the seventies and eighties houses. These are the bulk of the village: more than four in ten homes here went up between 1945 and 1982 and another four in ten between 1983 and 2008. Their lofts were built with one thin layer between the joists, and by now it has settled, been compressed under whatever is stored on it, and pulled back from the edges. Where boarding went straight onto the joists, storage has been flattening it for years. We lay between and over: fresh eco roll mineral wool between the timbers, a second run at right angles across the top so the joists stop bridging the cold, 250mm to 270mm all in, which is what carries a ceiling to the 0.16 U-value Approved Document L expects of a renovated roof. Anything left above the new depth gets colder, so pipe runs and the tank need lagging and any downlighter needs a fire rated cover.
Houses of that age were built with a proper cavity wall and often with a partial fill or none at all. We borescope before anyone quotes a full fill, because what we find ranges from a clean empty gap to a slumped fill with the top third of the wall bare, to mortar droppings bridging it. Any of those changes the answer, and a wall filled in the wrong condition ends up wetter rather than warmer. Where a wall turns out solid there is nothing to fill, so it is internal wall lining or external wall insulation, and EWI changes how a house looks.
Flats, maisonettes and the party wall. A fifth of the homes here are terraced, and in houses of this age the party wall very often does not carry on up to the underside of the roof, so the layer has to be taken properly up to the wall on both sides rather than trailed off short. If you are on a top floor the void above your ceiling is often a common part rather than yours, so the freeholder or the management company instructs the work, and where the cost is recharged through a service charge above a statutory limit leaseholders have a right to be consulted under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Insulating a loft, a floor or the inside face of a wall is an improvement rather than development, so no planning permission is involved and it sits inside permitted development, which is what the Planning Portal's insulation guidance says. Building control is a separate question and it is engaged once a thermal element is renovated, when insulation goes in at rafter level during a re-roof, when a loft becomes a room. Three Legged Cross sits in the Green Belt, which does not touch insulation work but does bear on anything that adds floor area, so it is worth reading the other permissions you may need before you plan an extension around the work. Dorset Council is the authority here.
Cost
What decides the price of an insulation job
No rate per square metre. A bungalow with a hatch you can put a ladder under, an eighties house where the loft is half boarded and everything has to come up and go back, and a converted garage with no roof space at all are three different days before any material is bought. 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 hatch is 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 looked at quickly. The first visit tells you whether it is insulation, ventilation or both. Three Legged Cross is a short run out past West Moors, so getting somebody to look at it quickly is rarely the problem.
Worth knowing
Here you improve what already stands, rather than add to it
The village is ringed by Green Belt, and that shapes the work we get asked to do here more than any planning rule ever touches a loft. Adding floor area is a harder conversation than reusing a building that already stands, so instead of extending, people bring the garage, the outbuilding or the roof space into the heated part of the house.
Insulation is not development, so none of that restriction applies to the quilt itself. What it does mean is that a lot of the heated rooms in this village started life as unheated ones, and they were built to a standard that never expected anybody to sit in them in February.
That changes what the job actually is. Take a garage. The walls are frequently single skin with no cavity to fill, so the only route is an insulated stud or an insulated plasterboard laminate on the inside, with a vapour control layer on the warm side, and you lose a little room width doing it. The roof is often a shallow flat deck with joists and no ventilation designed into it, so stuffing quilt between those joists creates a cold, sealed void and condensation on the underside of the deck. The honest answer there is a warm roof built at the next re-covering, with the insulation above the deck rather than below it.
The floor is usually a slab poured without a damp proof membrane and often a step down from the house, so insulating it means a membrane, board and a new screed or deck, and thinking about door and threshold heights before anything is laid. And the up-and-over opening has to become a proper insulated wall rather than a sheet of board across a hole. Do all four and you get a room. Do only the easy one and you get a warmer garage that still feels cold, which is why we price them as four separate lines rather than one number.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Three Legged Cross, Verwood and West Moors on BH21 and BH31, out towards Ashley Heath, Ringwood and St Leonards, 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.
Questions
Three Legged Cross questions we get asked
Almost nothing here is old. Does that make it straightforward?
Mostly it does. Only 5.7% of Three Legged Cross predates 1919 and 41.0% went up between 1983 and 2008, so the walls are nearly all cavity built and the roofs are trussed with a decent void over the ceiling. Standard details work: two layers of quilt, baffles at the eaves, a sealed hatch. Solid wall problems and lime plaster arguments belong to other villages rather than this one.
We want to insulate the outbuilding. Does Green Belt stop it?
Not the insulating. Green Belt bites when something is built or made bigger, so an extension or a new outbuilding at Three Legged Cross is where it applies, not lining a building that already stands. If the outbuilding is going to be slept in, that is a change of use and brings in both planning and the building regulations. Warming a workshop so it is usable in January does not.
A quarter of the village is bungalows. Bigger job than a house?
Bigger area, simpler work. Bungalows are 24.8% here, and in a bungalow the ceiling under the loft is the full footprint of the building rather than the upstairs half, so there is a lot more to cover. The compensation is that the void tends to be one clear run with decent headroom at the ridge. More material, fewer awkward corners, and a bigger difference to how the place feels.
Is there anything to clear with the council beforehand?
Practically never. Three Legged Cross has one listed entry and no conservation area, and Dorset Council has no interest in what depth of quilt is sitting on your ceiling. The exception is turning the roof space into a room, which pulls in structure, stairs and fire escape. If you are simply warming the house you already have, there is nothing at all to apply for.
How do I know if ours needs doing at all?
Look at it against the joists. If the timber tops are showing above the material, or you can see daylight at the eaves with nothing holding the quilt back off the gap, it is short. Damp patches on the felt, a hatch that whistles and a bedroom that goes cold within an hour of the heating shutting off all point the same way. A depth measure at the visit confirms it.
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Get a look before you get a price
A free site visit in Three Legged Cross, a rule put into whatever is up there now, and a written itemised quote with the method on it as well as the number.