Insulation in Upton
Loft, rafter, cavity and floor insulation for the post-war houses, terraces and bungalows in Upton, surveyed before it is priced.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Most houses in Upton have a proper loft over them, and a second layer laid over the joists is usually a single day. The thing worth knowing before you start is underfoot rather than overhead: Upton sits in a radon affected area, so if a ground floor is coming up as part of the work, that is the one chance to get a barrier in under the insulation instead of doing the floor twice. The free visit covers both ends of the house.
The problems in Upton tend to be these. A loft that was done once, thinly, decades ago and never looked at since. A cold end wall, usually on a terrace or a semi, where the heating never quite catches up. Or a bedroom in the roof, or over a garage, that is always the coldest room in the house.
So we look before we price. We get into the roof space and put a rule into what is already up there, no guessing, check whether the eaves are still open and the ventilation path works, find the tank and any pipe runs that will end up above the new layer, and borescope an outside wall so we can see what is actually in the cavity.
Where a floor is part of the conversation we look at how it is built and what is under it. Then you get a written itemised quote with the method on it as well as the number.
The work
The gap in a sixties wall is narrower than it looks
Loft top-ups, between and over. More than half the houses in Upton went up between the war and the early eighties, most of them in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and those lofts got one thin layer pushed between the joists and nothing since.
It has settled, been compressed under everything stored on it and pulled back from the edges. We lay fresh mineral wool between the timbers and 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.
Around a quarter of the houses in Upton are terraced and another one in six is a semi, and in stock of this age the party wall very often does not carry up to the underside of the roof. You can only insulate your own ceiling, so the layer is taken right up to the wall on both sides, not trailed off short, which is exactly where the cold strip on a bedroom ceiling comes from. The eaves stay clear so the shared roof space can still breathe.
Upton houses from the sixties and seventies do have a cavity wall, but a narrow one, and what is in it varies from nothing at all to a fill that has slumped. We drill a small hole and borescope it before anyone quotes a fill, because a narrow, bridged or debris filled cavity is where a full fill causes damp on the inside face rather than a warmer room.
Bungalows, chalets and rooms in the roof. A quarter of the homes in Upton are bungalows, and their roofs run out to a very shallow space at the eaves, so the depth is worked right out over the wall plate, not stopped where it gets awkward. Where the bedroom is already in the roof there is no loft left and it becomes rigid board: PIR such as Celotex between the rafters with a clear air gap above, a foil faced board under the rafters to break the cold bridge, or a multi-layer quilt like TLX where the rafter depth is not there. Dormer cheeks and the voids behind knee walls go in at the same time. Then an insulated, draughtproofed hatch, fire rated covers over downlighters, vent trays at the eaves, lagging on the tank and any pipework now above the new layer, and a boarding deck raised on legs where you need storage.
How it runs
Insulating an Upton home: roof, floor or walls
Thomas comes out and looks at the whole house before suggesting anything, because on a home from around 1970 the loft, the walls and the floor each lose heat in their own way. He checks the depth in the loft, whether the cavity has been filled, and how the roof is ventilated.
The quote lists survey, clearing, the material and its depth, ventilation works and disposal as separate lines. Thomas measures it, prices it and is the one you ring throughout.
In an Upton house, loft work comes through the hatch over dust sheets, and old insulation is bagged before it reaches the landing. Floors are done a room at a time. If we find damp timbers, a leaking pipe or unsafe wiring, you are shown a photograph and a price before we go on.
Insulating a loft, a floor or the inside face of a wall is an improvement rather than development, so no planning permission is needed, which is what the Planning Portal's insulation guidance says. Building control comes in when a thermal element is renovated, when a loft becomes a room, and when a ground floor is relaid, which also brings radon protection into the specification. A loft room for your own household does not normally engage the Poole Harbour nutrient neutrality rules, and insulation alone never does. Upton has no conservation area. Dorset Council handles planning and building control.
Cost
What decides an insulation price in an Upton house
We do not quote a square metre rate. Where the heat is going, and how hard it is to reach, decide it.
Getting in. A bungalow with a hatch you can stand a ladder under, a terrace where the only way up is off a narrow landing, and a chalet where the whole job sits at rafter level are three different days before any material is bought.
What is there now. Old material to bag and remove, and boxes to move and put back, come before anything new goes in.
Which part of the house. On most seventies homes, bringing the loft up to the depth Approved Document L expects is the quickest return. Filling an empty cavity usually comes next. A suspended timber floor or an inside wall lining is slower, more disruptive work, and priced as such.
Ventilation. Air has to keep moving at the eaves, and a vent or a fan may need adding where the house has been sealed up with new windows. Blocking the airflow swaps cold for condensation.
Comparing quotes, ask what depth is being laid, whether the old material is removed or covered, whether the hatch and pipework are included, and what is being done about ventilation.
If it is urgent
Condensation, mould or a room that never warms up
A damp or cold house is worth a call on the number below. Water dripping in the loft, mould that keeps coming back, or a room that will not hold heat needs looking at before more insulation goes anywhere, because packing a roof space that cannot breathe makes it worse.
The first visit works out which it is, a ventilation fault, a leak or simply too little insulation, and we deal with the cause first. Scheduled insulation runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For water in the loft, call, and if you get no answer we call back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Radon changes the order you do the floor in
Upton sits inside a radon affected area, in the band where somewhere between three and five per cent of homes are estimated to be above the action level. That is the level at which basic radon protection is expected in new building work: a barrier built into the ground floor construction.
It does not apply to laying quilt in a loft and it is not a reason to leave a house cold. What it does is change the running order at the bottom of the building.
If a solid floor is being dug out, or a suspended timber floor is being opened up, that is the single opportunity to get a radon barrier and a damp proof membrane in underneath before the insulation and the new floor go on top. Doing it afterwards means taking the floor up again, which nobody does, so in practice it does not get done at all. Order a test kit before the work starts, not after. They are inexpensive, they sit in the house for around three months, and the result tells you whether you are dealing with something or nothing.
The second half of it is ventilation, and this is where insulation and radon actually meet. Every draught you seal makes the house hold its air for longer, and the air it holds includes whatever comes up from the ground. That is not an argument against draughtproofing, it is an argument for doing the two together. So the rule on our jobs is simple: insulate and ventilate in the same breath.
Trickle vents that open, an extract in the kitchen and the bathroom that genuinely runs to outside rather than into the loft, and on a suspended timber floor the underfloor airbricks stay open, which keeps the void dry and disperses ground gas at the same time. Approved Document F covers the ventilation side and regulation 23 covers what is expected when a thermal element is renovated, and between them they describe the job properly: a warmer house that still breathes.
Who you are dealing with
Who insulates your home
We cover Upton and Lytchett Minster in BH16, out through Lytchett Matravers, Holton Heath and Sandford and across to Poole and Broadstone, from a base 8.5 miles away in Boscombe. For an Upton address, Dorset Council handles planning and building control.
You would be dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. It is Thomas Hannen's business, and he visits and prices the insulation himself. A verified customer has given us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The survey visit is free, as is the written quote. Before you book a visit in Upton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Upton?
Most repairs in Upton 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 Upton |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Upton. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Upton, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Upton. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Upton. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in Upton
Would a room in the roof here trigger the Poole Harbour nutrient rules?
A room in the roof does not normally trigger them. The nutrient neutrality position for Poole Harbour bites on a new dwelling or separate overnight accommodation, such as an annexe or a holiday let, and a bedroom added to your own house is not usually caught. Rolling quilt into the loft you already have adds nothing, so it sits outside all of that.
If the room might be let on its own, raise it with Dorset at the enquiry stage, because it gets settled before the build and not during it.
Most of Upton went up between 1945 and 1982. Why does that matter?
Because 52.1% of the stock here comes from that window, and the heaviest single run was the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lofts from those years got a thin quilt laid one way between the joists and very often nothing since. You find it flattened, gappy where somebody has crawled over it, and stopping a good way short of the wall plate. That is a top up and an edge job.
Upton is a radon affected area. Does that rule anything out?
Not for insulating what is already there. Upton sits in a band where basic radon protection is asked for in new work, and that is a ground floor measure designed in when you form a new slab for an extension or a conversion. Laying material over an existing ceiling does not touch the ground under the house at all. Where it does apply, Thomas flags it when he prices the job.
Nearly a quarter of Upton is terraced. Any difference in the loft?
There is. At 24.2% terraced, plenty of these lofts end at a party wall rather than a gable, and that junction is where the heat leaves. The insulation has to run out over the wall plate and meet that wall properly instead of stopping a foot short. The other thing a terrace decides is the hatch, which is usually on a tight landing and sets how bags come up and go out.
What happens to the old material you clear out?
It gets bagged at the hatch, not shaken out over the landing. Old quilt is dusty and it holds whatever has been living up there, so we seal it into bags in the loft, run sheets along the route to the front door, and it leaves on the van the same day. Nothing goes in your bin. If the existing layer is sound and only shallow, we leave it down and cross lay over the top.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near Upton
Nearby places we also cover for insulation, with straight-line distances from Upton, and the other trades we offer in Upton itself.
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Our other trades in Upton
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 Hamworthy Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get a look before you get a price
A free site visit in Upton, a rule put into whatever is up there now, and a written itemised quote with the method on it as well as the number.