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.
Last updated
Most West Parley houses have been added to at least once, and the cold part is usually the newest part, not 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.
In West Parley the coldest rooms tend to be the same ones from house to house. 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 comes first. Nearly all of it is a top-up, not 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 in West Parley went up between the war and the early eighties, so that one thin original layer is what you usually find up there. 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 West Parley houses like these. 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 West Parley 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
Insulating a bungalow, a garage room or an extension
Bungalows make up over a third of West Parley's homes, and with the whole house beneath one roof the loft is where most heat goes. Thomas comes out, goes up into the loft or the room over the garage, measures the depth of insulation already there, and checks the ventilation at the eaves. Your written quote lists the survey, clearing and bagging old material, the new material and its depth, ventilation works such as eaves or tile vents, and disposal.
On the day the job is kept tidy. We board a walkway to the hatch if needed, lay dust sheets beneath it and clear up each day. Old material is bagged in the loft and carried out, not dragged through the house. If we find damp timbers, a roof leak or old wiring buried in the insulation, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Insulating inside a loft needs no planning permission, and nothing inside a house is development. Insulating the outside of a wall is usually permitted development too; Planning Portal guidance on external walls and Planning Portal guidance on insulation cover the exceptions, which include the small conservation area around the old church. Building control is what matters. Under regulation 23, renovating more than half of a thermal element means bringing the whole element up to standard, so a re-covered flat roof on an extension is insulated at the same time. Dorset Council handles both here.
Cost
Why a big bungalow roof and a garage room price differently
We do not price insulation by the square metre. It depends on the space you have. The space. A detached house with a big open loft and a clear run from the hatch is the simplest. A bungalow loft boarded for storage needs the boards lifted, or the insulation laid under raised supports. A room over the garage needs the floor, walls and sloping ceiling done, and sometimes the garage ceiling below as well.
What is already there. Old rolls that have been trodden flat, rubble from past work, or boxes in storage all have to be moved, bagged or put back before anything new goes down.
The detail. The eaves must stay open for air, pipes and tanks in the cold loft need lagging, and the hatch needs insulating and draught stripping. Approved Document L sets the standard the work has to meet.
Ask any other quote what depth they will lay, whether old material is removed or covered over, and whether the hatch, the pipework and the eaves ventilation are included.
If it is urgent
Condensation, mould or a room that will not warm up
Condensation dripping in the loft, mould on bedroom ceilings that keeps coming back, or a room that never warms up all need looking at, but more insulation is not always the answer. A roof space that cannot breathe gets wetter when you add to it.
Ring us, and tell us if the cold room is over the garage, because we will look at the ceiling underneath too. The first visit finds out whether the problem is missing insulation, blocked ventilation or water getting in, and we price from there. We book work Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm; ring if it is urgent, and if nobody answers, we will phone you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Most of the village is post-war, and the late sixties are the biggest slice
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 style of house here shares the same three weak points, 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, not 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 one of the bigger losses and the cheapest to stop.
Who you are dealing with
Insulation work in West Parley and nearby BH22
We are about 4.5 miles from West Parley, at our base in Boscombe. We insulate homes across the village, Longham, Ferndown, Bearwood and the BH22 addresses down towards the Stour, with Dorset Council for planning and building control. Send us your postcode if you want to check.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen, the owner, climbs into the loft and prices it himself. A verified customer rated us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Both the visit and the written, itemised quote are free. Before you book a visit in West Parley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in West Parley?
Most repairs in West Parley 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 West Parley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for West Parley. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: West Parley Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around West Parley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers West Parley. |
Questions
Questions about insulation in West Parley
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, both sit 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, not 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.
Nearby, and next door
Insulation near West Parley
Nearby places we also cover for insulation, with straight-line distances from West Parley, and the other trades we offer in West Parley itself.
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Our other trades in West Parley
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 Ferndown Insulation, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
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.