Insulation in West Parley
Loft top-ups taken to full depth, cold rooms over garages sorted from both sides, and extension roofs insulated properly when the covering comes off.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most West Parley houses have been added to at least once, and the cold part is usually the newest part rather than the original. Before anyone quotes for a loft here, the extension roof, the room over the garage and the flat roof off the back need looking at too.
People ring us about three rooms. The one over the garage, which has an unheated space underneath it as well as a roof above and is always the coldest bedroom in the house. The rear extension with a flat or shallow roof, which was built to whatever the standard was that year and has never been opened since. And the main loft, where somebody has finally been up and found the wool flattened, tracked through by cables and stopping well short of the eaves.
We come and look at all of it in one visit, because pricing the loft alone often solves the wrong problem. The visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. If the answer is a cross layer over what you already have, we will say so and price it as that.
The work
The room over the garage loses heat three ways
The main loft. Nearly all of it is a top-up rather than a strip out. We straighten and repair the existing layer, close the gaps at the ends of the runs, fit vent trays so the eaves stay clear, then lay eco roll across the joists at right angles, between and over, to a finished depth of around 270mm. That is what the 0.16 u-value in Approved Document L expects of a renovated roof. Nearly three in five houses here went up between the war and the early eighties, so that one thin original layer is what we usually find. Old material comes out only if it is wet, mouldy or nested in.
The room over the garage. Common on this stock and the single most complained about room in the village. It loses heat upwards into the roof, sideways through a gable that is often exposed on three sides, and downwards into a cold garage, so fixing the loft alone changes very little. The floor void wants rigid board or wool between the joists, the garage ceiling gets a vapour control layer before it is boarded back, and the up and over door gets sealed round, since a garage that is draughty keeps the floor above it cold whatever you put in it.
A shallow or flat roof over a rear extension has no loft to crawl into, so there is no cheap fix from inside. Where the covering has come to the end of its life the sensible answer is a warm roof, with rigid PIR board laid over the deck and the new covering over that, done from above so the ceiling is left alone. Insulating between the joists from below costs ceiling height and can trap moisture if it is not detailed properly.
Where a loft has been converted the work is at rafter level, with rigid board cut tight between and under the rafters, a clear ventilation gap above, dormer cheeks and the sloping ceiling done to match, and the little voids behind the dwarf walls done at the same time or the room stays cold. The cavity walls on this stock are narrow and many were filled under a scheme years ago, so a borescope survey settles what is in there before anyone quotes to inject more; where a fill has slumped, the honest answer is extraction before refill. Then a boarded and draught sealed hatch, storage decking re-laid on legs, lagging on the tank and pipework, and covers over downlighters.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised: survey, clearing, the material and its depth, ventilation works and disposal on separate lines.
Nothing inside a loft needs planning permission, and with no conservation area over West Parley, insulating the outside of a wall is normally permitted development as well; Planning Portal guidance on external walls and Planning Portal guidance on insulation cover the exceptions. Building control is the part that matters. Regulation 23 of the Building Regulations means renovating more than half of a thermal element brings the whole element up to standard, which is why a re-covered extension roof gets insulated at the same time rather than later. Dorset Council for both here.
Cost
What decides the price of an insulation job
No rate per square metre. A detached house with a big open loft, a bungalow with the loft boarded out, and a room over the garage that needs the floor doing as well as the roof are three different jobs. Old material to bag and take away, and storage to move and put back, come before anything new goes down, and Approved Document L sets what the work has to reach. Comparing quotes, ask what depth is being laid, whether the old material is removed or covered, and whether the hatch and pipework are included.
If it is urgent
Damp, condensation or a room you cannot heat
Ring rather than use the form. Condensation dripping in the loft, mould that keeps coming back, or a room that will not hold heat gets looked at quickly. Insulating a roof space that cannot breathe makes it worse, so the first visit settles which it is. West Parley is a few minutes from us. If the cold room is over the garage, say so, because we look at the ceiling underneath as well.
Worth knowing
Nearly the whole village was built to one standard, in one decade
Most of West Parley went up between the war and the early eighties, with the biggest share of it in the late sixties and early seventies. That matters more than it sounds. A house from that decade was built with a narrow cavity, a thin layer of loft wool if it had any at all, and a suspended or solid ground floor with nothing under it.
Whole roads went up together, which is why the same three complaints come from the same style of house here again and again, and why a quote your neighbour had for an identical layout is a fair guide to yours.
The useful thing to establish before you spend anything is whether your cavity has already been filled. Look at the mortar joints on the flank wall: a regular grid of filled drill holes, usually about a metre apart, means somebody has injected it. If it has been filled, more fill is not the answer and the money belongs in the loft and the extension instead.
If it has not, get a borescope survey rather than a leaflet, because a narrow cavity on the elevation that takes the weather from the south west is not always a candidate for fill, and a bad fill on that side causes damp rather than curing it. Either way, the loft comes first: it is cheaper, it is reversible, and on a house of this age it is where the largest single slice of the heat loss goes.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover West Parley, Longham, Ferndown, Bearwood and the BH22 addresses down towards the Stour, with Dorset Council for planning and building control. Send the postcode if you want to be sure. 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
West Parley questions we get asked
West Parley is a third bungalows and a third detached. Which loses more?
The bungalow, for the same floor area. With 36.4% bungalows and 35.2% detached, we see both on the same road here, and a single storey roof spans twice the ceiling of a two storey house of equivalent size. The detached house loses more through its walls, since all four faces are exposed. So the bungalow gets the loft dealt with first and the detached usually gets the walls assessed as well.
The surface water risk here is high. Does that change any work?
It changes what we do at ground level rather than in the roof. West Parley sits outside the river flood zones but carries a high surface water rating, so water arrives across the ground in a downpour rather than rising out of the Stour. Thresholds, air bricks and low level vents matter then. Sealing those up in the name of draught proofing is how people create a problem for themselves.
Why is the bedroom above the garage colder than the rest?
Because its floor sits over an unheated space and its walls are exposed on three sides, so it loses heat downwards as well as outwards. Extra depth in the main loft does nothing for it. What works is insulating between and under the garage ceiling joists, checking the wall shared with the house, and closing the gap where that floor meets the outside wall. It is a separate piece of work.
What does Thomas actually look at on the survey?
Depth and coverage first, then the edges. He measures what is up there, checks whether it stops at the wall plate or carries over it, looks for a clear air path at the eaves, and checks whether the hatch seals. On the older post war housing around West Parley he also looks for pipe runs and a tank sitting above the insulation rather than under it. The visit and the written quote are free.
Nearly six in ten houses here are post war. Is the loft always thin?
Usually. 57.8% of the stock went up between 1945 and 1982 and the peak run was the late 1960s and early 1970s at 28.1%, when a couple of inches between the joists counted as finished. Some have been topped since and plenty have not. You can settle it from the hatch yourself: if the tops of the joists are visible above the material, there is not enough up there.
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One visit, the whole house looked at
Free site visit anywhere in West Parley, and a written itemised quote that separates the loft, the ventilation work and anything at rafter level.