Loft insulation in Ashley

What is up there already decides the first hour. Ashley lofts usually have something in them. It has settled, it is compressed flat wherever anyone knelt on it, and it is patchy or missing in the corners nobody could reach. Dry and in one piece, it stays and we lay over it. Damp, black underneath or contaminated with droppings, it comes out bagged and leaves with us, on its own line.

The material. Most of this is mineral wool, either a soft glass wool roll or a denser rockwool batt. Loose fill, blown or poured, suits a loft where the joists are irregular, and sheep wool is there if you want it. Where headroom is the constraint it becomes PIR, the foil faced rigid board, cut tight and taped, and in a really shallow space a multi-foil quilt earns its keep. Where there is no loft floor to work on, a room in roof is a different job: it goes at rafter level as a warm roof, with board between and under the rafters and the sloping ceiling and dormer cheeks carried through as one layer.

Depth, and why the second layer runs the other way. A ceiling joist is rarely deep enough to hold more than a third of what the ceiling wants, so one layer laid flush between the joists and called finished is the commonest fault in a loft of any age. The first layer goes between the joists. The second is cross laid over the joists at ninety degrees to the first, so the timber stops working as a cold bridge through the ceiling. Two layers, roughly 270mm all in, which is what a Part L U value works out to in mineral wool.

Where it has to stop. The layer stops at the wall plate. The eaves stay open, and vent trays keep a clear air gap under the covering above the quilt so cross ventilation still crosses the roof from eaves to eaves. Block the eaves and you have bought a wet roof: the vapour that used to drift away sits under cold felt instead, and by February there are droplets on the underlay and black mould on the rafters. Insulating moves the dew point, and interstitial condensation inside the layer is the failure nobody sees. A roof with a breathable membrane, or none at all, is detailed differently, and on some a ridge vent is the honest answer.

The things already living up there. Recessed lights want proper covers, not a heap of wool over the top, and cables are lifted and clipped over the top instead of being buried, since buried wiring runs hot. Once the ceiling is at full depth the cold water tank sits in cold air, so it gets a jacket, the pipework gets lagging, and the patch under the tank is left thinner on purpose.

We do not price an Ashley loft by the square metre. The floor is the easy part; the edges take the time. Size and shape. Bungalow lofts are big for the house beneath them, and a hipped roof brings the eaves down low all round, so the last stretch at every edge is slow, lying-down work.

Getting in. A hatch in a bungalow hall ceiling is simple. A chalet with rooms in the roof leaves only eaves voids behind small doors. A semi with the hatch over a half landing needs a platform first.

What is up there. Squashed or dirty old wool comes out in bags first, and stored boxes have to be moved. Joists at even centres with a clear run go quickly, and a trussed roof full of bracing does not, because every roll has to be cut round the timbers.

Ventilation. The eaves must stay clear, the tank and pipes need lagging once they sit above the new layer, and downlighters need boxing. Approved Document L sets the target depth.

Ask what depth is going down and in how many layers, whether old material comes out, and whether the hatch is insulated too.

Something over four in ten homes in Ashley are bungalows, and that changes both the sums and the storage in a loft. The arithmetic first: the ceiling you are insulating sits over every room in the house rather than over the upstairs only, so the same day's work cuts more heat loss here than it does in a two storey house on the same footprint, and the heating bill notices it sooner.

It is also the one thermal improvement an EPC assessor measures with a tape rather than assumes.

The other thing is that in an Ashley bungalow the loft is usually the only storage there is, and nobody wants to give that up. You do not have to. Loft legs stand a raised floor clear above the insulation, so the quilt is never squashed flat under a chipboard platform, which is what makes most boarded storage useless. We board the part you actually use and leave the rest at full depth. The hatch gets insulated on its back and sealed against draughts, and if the loft ladder is a wobbly one we will say so.

Lofts in Ashley, New Milton, Bashley, Hordle, Tiptoe and Barton on Sea, and the BH25 addresses round them, fall under New Forest District Council for building control. Boscombe, where we are based, is 8.9 miles away.

Thomas Hannen crawls in, looks at your loft and does the pricing himself, and the business is his: Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Checkatrade shows a verified customer's 10 out of 10 for us. Your visit is free, as is a written quote broken into items. Before you book a visit in Ashley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Ashley 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.