Insulation in Woodlands
Post-war lofts brought up to depth, cavities checked before anything is drilled, and cold flat roofs sorted properly.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most of the houses we insulate around Woodlands were built to the standard of their own decade and have never been touched since. That usually means a thin original layer over the ceiling and a cavity in the walls that nobody has ever looked inside. Both are cheap to check and neither can be judged from the pavement, which is what the free survey is for.
Three things bring people to ring. A detached house that takes an age to warm up and cools off the moment the heating stops, because every wall in it is an outside wall. A bungalow where the whole roof sits directly over the living space and the loft has a token layer in it. And a flat roofed extension at the back that is freezing in winter and stifling in August.
We work across Woodlands, Netley Marsh and the lanes towards Ashurst. The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Where a cavity should not be filled, or a loft only needs topping up rather than stripping out, the quote will say so plainly.
The work
Weather on all four sides, not two
Ceilings brought back up to depth. The largest single group of homes here went up in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and a ceiling insulated to the expectations of that time is nowhere near where one is expected to be now. Eco roll mineral wool goes between and over the joists, the second layer crossing the first so no joist is left as a cold bridge through the plasterboard, finishing at around 270mm. Old material that has settled or been compressed under a storage deck is made good rather than buried, and anything wet or spoiled is bagged and taken away.
The cavity, checked before it is filled. Houses of that generation were built as two leaves with a gap that was never meant to hold anything. Whether it can now is a question for a camera through a mortar joint, not for the year on the deeds: we want to see the width, whether mortar has dropped onto the wall ties, whether the void is clear, and whether somebody has already filled it. An old fill that has slumped leaves a void at the top and a packed wet mass at the bottom, and that comes out before anything new goes in. Some walls should be left alone and we will say which.
Two in five homes here are detached, which changes the arithmetic. A terrace loses heat through two walls and borrows warmth from the neighbours through the others; a detached house has weather on all four elevations and a gable or two on top of it, so the corner rooms and the room above the porch are the ones that never feel right. Where there is no cavity to fill, that is where an internal wall lining earns its place: insulated board on battens with a vapour control layer, returned into the reveals and down to the floor perimeter so the cold does not simply walk round the edge of it.
The back extension is often the coldest room in a house like this, because the roof over it was built thin and the deck has nothing in it. If the covering is being renewed anyway, that is the moment: rigid PIR board laid over the deck as a warm roof, which is the detail that gets a flat roof to the 0.16 figure a renovated element is expected to reach, and it avoids burying insulation in a cold void where condensation collects.
A third of the homes here are bungalows, and on a bungalow the ceiling is the whole house, so depth up there matters more than anywhere else and a hatch with nothing on the back of it is a bigger hole than it looks. Where a dormer or a room in the roof has been added, the sloping ceiling takes rigid board between and under the rafters, or a multi-layer foil quilt such as TLX where the head height is tight. Vent trays keep the eaves open behind the new depth, the tank and pipework get lagging as the loft turns colder, downlighters get fire rated covers, and the storage boarding goes back on legs rather than on the quilt.
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.
Insulation is normally permitted development and nothing you lay inside a loft needs planning permission, which Planning Portal guidance on insulation sets out. Anything applied to the outside face is different here, in a National Park and inside the Forest North East conservation area, and it is dealt with further down. The other one worth knowing is regulation 23 of the Building Regulations: renovate more than half of a thermal element and the whole element has to be brought up to current standard, so a re-roof pulls the insulation along with it. Building control is a separate process from National Park planning.
Cost
What decides the price of an insulation job
No rate per square metre. A bungalow with the hatch in the hall, a detached house with a flat roofed extension across the back, and a forest cottage where the roof space is a crawl under a purlin 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. We are on that side of the Forest most weeks, so it is days rather than weeks. Tell us which room is the problem.
Worth knowing
The National Park is your planning authority, not the district
This catches people out more than any other local point, so it is worth saying clearly. Planning here goes through the New Forest National Park Authority rather than the district council, and part of the area sits inside the Forest North East conservation area on top of that. For an insulation job that only bites in one place: the outside face of the building. A roll over the ceiling, an insulated lining on the inside of a wall, a sealed hatch, vent trays at the eaves and a warm deck on a flat roof are all invisible from the lane and none of them engage it.
External wall insulation, a change of render, a new dormer or a flue coming through a roof slope all do. National Park heritage and conservation guidance sets out how the Authority approaches that sort of change, and you can look up what covers your own address on the National Park Authority's interactive property map.
The practical consequence is an order of work rather than a barrier. Do the things nobody needs to approve first, because on a house of this age they are also the things that return the most: full depth over the ceiling, the cavity checked and filled if it is suitable, the draughts and the hatch, and the flat roof done properly the next time it is recovered.
That is the bulk of the heat loss dealt with without a single form. Then, if the walls still need work and there is no cavity to fill, we look at whether a rear elevation or an outbuilding could take external insulation and what the Authority is likely to say, before anybody pays for a drawing.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Woodlands, Netley Marsh, Ashurst, Cadnam and the SO40 addresses on that side of the Forest, with the New Forest National Park Authority as the planning authority. Send the postcode if you want to be certain. 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
Woodlands questions we get asked
Four in ten homes here are detached. Does that change the approach?
It changes where the heat goes. At 41.5% detached and another 32.8% bungalows, most houses in Woodlands have all four walls exposed and a large roof sitting over them, with no party wall doing them any favours. The loss is spread rather than shared. The upside is access all the way round, which makes the eaves easy to inspect from outside before anybody goes into the roof space.
Our house is in Forest North East. What can we not do outside?
Anything that changes the look of it without asking first. Forest North East is a conservation area sitting inside the New Forest National Park, so two layers of control apply to the outside of the building and the National Park Authority is the body you deal with. External wall insulation, a new covering and rooflights on a visible slope are the usual sticking points. The roof space itself is invisible.
Most of the village is late fifties and early sixties. Is that a problem?
It is a pattern rather than a problem. 46.5% of the stock here was built between 1945 and 1982, with the heaviest run in the late 1950s and early 1960s at 22.0%. Houses of that age got shallow material if they got any, and the ceilings have often had downlights and pipe runs added since. We find those before adding depth, because burying the wrong thing causes its own trouble.
The ground here does not drain. Does that affect anything we do?
It affects the floor, not the roof. Woodlands sits on impeded drainage with flood zone 2 reaching part of it and a tributary running close by, so the ground under the house stays wet for long spells after rain. Underfloor voids need moving air to cope with that, and whatever goes between floor joists has to leave the ventilation path alone. Over the ceiling none of this comes into it.
Would a loft conversion here need more than building control?
It would. Inside the National Park a conversion normally needs a planning application as well, because dormers and rooflights alter the outside, and creating a bedroom brings the Solent nutrient neutrality position in on top of that. Insulating the space you already have does neither. If the aim is a warmer house rather than another room, the simple version gets you there without the paperwork.
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