Loft insulation in Ashley Heath

Topping up what is there. The usual find in an Ashley Heath loft is one layer of mineral wool between the joists, finished flush with the top of them. That was the standard once, and it leaves every joist acting as a cold bridge through the middle of the insulation.

Sound material stays, gets straightened and pushed back into the gaps where it has settled, and a second layer of unbacked roll goes over the top, running across the joists rather than along them. Two layers, the second one crossing the first, is what gets you to about 270mm finished. When it is in you cannot see the timber any more.

Clearing first. Some of it has to come out. Material that is wet, patchy where somebody has walked through it or contaminated with droppings gets bagged and carried out rather than covered over, and so does the loose fill you still meet in older houses, which drifts into the eaves and blocks them.

Working in a trussed roof. Much of the housing in Ashley Heath went up in the 1970s and early 1980s on trussed rafters, which is bracing to work around rather than a clear space you can move about in. Nothing is stood on the ceiling. We work off boards laid across the joists and do the far corners first, because the corner left until last is the one that ends up missing its depth.

The eaves, and why we stop short. Insulation runs out over the wall plate and then stops, with a clear air gap above it. Eaves vent trays hold that gap open so the roll cannot be pushed into it, and cross ventilation still works from one side of the loft to the other. Fill the eaves and you have a warm bedroom under a wet roof, with condensation running off the underside of the felt and black mould along the timbers by February. A breathable membrane is more forgiving than old bitumen felt, but the edge detail is the same either way.

Services, storage and sloping ceilings. Recessed lights get fire rated covers, and cable is lifted and clipped above the new layer instead of being buried, because wiring in insulation runs hot. A cold water tank and its pipework end up on the cold side, so pipes are lagged, the tank gets a jacket and a lid, and nothing is laid underneath it. The hatch gets an insulated board and a draught seal. If you use the loft, we build a raised floor on loft legs so the boarding sits above full depth, and set the loft ladder to suit. Where a chalet bungalow has a room in the roof it becomes rafter level work instead: rigid board between the rafters with the air gap open above, PIR under, taped so the vapour control is continuous.

A loft is not priced by the square metre. The open middle goes quickly, and the awkward edges and the way in take the time.

Getting up there. A hall hatch in a bungalow with space for a ladder is simple. A chalet may only have a small opening off an upper landing, or a door in a knee wall, and every roll goes through it by hand. A crawl space adds hours.

Clearing first. Boxes stored up there have to come down and go back. Flattened old mineral wool can often stay and be topped up, but dirty or damp wool is lifted and bagged first. Joists at regular 400 centres roll out fast, while trussed rafters crossed with bracing slow everything, and so does boarding that has to be lifted and relaid.

The edges. The wool stops short of the wall plate so air can still move at the eaves. Pushing full depth into the corners, fitting covers over downlighters, and wrapping the tank and pipes that will now sit in the cold take most of the labour. Approved Document L sets the target.

Check with anyone else what finished depth they are laying and in how many layers, whether the old wool is coming out, what keeps the eaves open, and whether boarding, the hatch and the pipes are in their figure.

Just over half the homes in Ashley Heath are bungalows, and that changes the sums. Every room sits directly under the roof, so the ceiling you are insulating is roughly twice the area it would be in a two storey house of the same floor space. Heat loss upward is the largest single thing you can do anything about here, and the loft is the cheapest place in the building to do it.

The catch in Ashley Heath is the shape of the roof. A bungalow comes down to head height at the edge, so the last metre over the wall plate is the awkward one, and it sits directly above the outside wall of a room you use every day. That corner is where a rushed job stops, and you feel it as a cold strip along the back bedroom wall. We get out there on boards, fit trays so the air gap survives, and carry the depth into the corner rather than tapering it away. A hipped bungalow roof has four of those edges instead of two, which is why they are a separate line on the quote.

Loft jobs in Ashley Heath, and in St Leonards, St Ives and Ringwood on the same side of BH24, are handled from our base in Boscombe, 7.1 miles away. Building control for a thermal element sits with Dorset Council.

We are Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which is a matter of public record. Thomas Hannen owns the company and is the one on the ladder under your hatch, pricing the job himself. We have a verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Both the visit and the itemised quote in writing are free. Before you book a visit in Ashley Heath, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Ashley Heath 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.