Loft insulation in Ashmore
Two layers laid properly, the eaves left to breathe, and a written price for the whole loft before anything goes in.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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In an Ashmore loft the target is 270mm of mineral wool in two layers: one between the joists, one cross laid over them so the timber stops being a cold bridge. An old layer that is still dry gets built on, not binned. Keep the eaves clear, raise any boarding on loft legs, and wrap the tank and pipes that will now sit in colder air. Walls and floors of the cottage belong on our Ashmore insulation page.
A loft in Ashmore that needs attention shows it in a cold bedroom, a flattened layer or damp. A bedroom that never really warms up however long the heating runs. An old thin layer between the joists that has flattened over the years and does very little now. Or damp, which means mould on a ceiling, or droplets on the underside of the felt when somebody finally looks. The village sits high and open on the chalk, and the wind that crosses it finds every draught round a hatch and every place the wool stops short of the wall. We put our head through the hatch before saying anything. The site visit is free, so is the written itemised quote, and if the loft is sound and the money belongs on draughtproofing instead, you will be told that.
The work
Up in the roof of a downland cottage
What is already up there. Most lofts in Ashmore have one old layer between the joists, compressed under boxes, settled, patchy, with gaps where somebody pulled it back to run a cable and whole runs missing at the edges. Anything contaminated with droppings or wet from an old leak comes out into bags and leaves with us.
The material, and how deep it goes. Most lofts in Ashmore get mineral wool, glass wool or rockwool in a roll. The first layer goes between the joists, cut to a friction fit rather than squashed in, and the second is laid across them at right angles, the two finishing at 270mm. Batts suit uneven joist spacing and loose fill suits a loft you cannot move about in. Where headroom is tight, rigid board, PIR such as Celotex, goes in instead. Sheep wool and multi-foil have a place only where there is no depth to give.
The eaves stay clear. Insulation in an Ashmore loft stops at the wall plate and is never pushed out over it. Where the wool would choke that gap we fit vent trays to hold an air gap under the felt, because cross ventilation is what keeps the timbers dry. A breathable membrane is more forgiving than old bitumen felt, and a ridge vent helps where the eaves cannot be opened up. Cover the eaves and you have bought a wet roof.
The tank, the cables and the lights. Once the ceiling is insulated everything above it sits in the cold. A cold water tank and its pipework want lagging, the tank on its sides and top but never underneath. A cable must not be buried, because wiring that cannot lose heat carries less current, so we lift it and clip it over. Any recessed light or downlighter below gets a fire rated cover.
The hatch, and keeping the loft usable. The hatch is the biggest hole in your ceiling and the line most quotes leave out. It gets insulated on the back and draught sealed round the frame. Boarding straight onto the joists squashes the wool flat, so where you store things we raise the floor on loft legs and board over that, leaving the loft ladder and a platform by the hatch usable.
Where the ceiling slopes. A room in the roof, a dormer or a sloping ceiling on the landing follows the rafters rather than the floor: rigid board cut between them with a clear gap kept above to the underlay, a second layer under, and the joints taped. Where the covering is coming off anyway, a warm roof is cheaper again.
How it runs
Insulating the loft of an older house, step by step
Roof spaces in older Ashmore houses are seldom a tidy grid of joists. Thomas goes up to check how deep and how far apart the joists are, what is lying there now, the eaves, and whether there is a breathable membrane, old felt or bare tiles above, then writes the price himself.
The quote covers the survey, bagging and removing old material, the new insulation and the depth it reaches, keeping air moving at the eaves, the hatch and pipework, and waste.
Dust sheets go under the hatch and along the landing, old material leaves in sealed bags, and the house is left tidy each day. Everything is brought up in a single drop where the lane has room. Should we find damp timber, woodworm or daylight through the roof, you are shown it with a price attached before we carry on.
Laying insulation inside a loft is not development, so no application is needed, as the Planning Portal guidance on insulation confirms. The U value the work must reach comes from Approved Document L, and building control sits with Dorset Council. If the house is listed, talk to the council before altering the roof space.
Cost
What decides the price of a loft up here
Lofts here are not priced by floor area. The centre is quick; it is the edges and getting in that eat the hours.
The way in. A landing with room for a ladder, an attic with a proper stair, and a farm cottage with a small trap above a cupboard all start differently. A crawl space you cross on your knees, or boards that must be lifted and relaid, adds time before insulation goes down.
Clearing out. Old material to be bagged and removed, and belongings to be moved and put back, come before the new layer. Joists at 400 centres in straight runs are quick, while purlins and bracing everywhere are not.
Cold nights and the eaves. An exposed roof must keep air moving at the eaves, or the bedroom gets warmer and the roof timbers get wet. Filling the corners to full depth, putting covers over downlights and wrapping the cold water tank and pipes is where most of the labour goes, and Approved Document L sets the standard.
Compare quotes on the finished depth and number of layers, whether old material comes out, how the eaves stay ventilated, whether your stored things are moved and put back, and whether the hatch and pipework are covered.
If the loft is wet
Wet felt, dripping timbers or mould in the roof space
Beads of water under the felt, mould spreading on the rafters or damp insulation all point to moist air from the house reaching a roof space it cannot escape from. Ashmore sits high and open on the chalk and gets cold nights, so it can start early in the autumn.
Hold off adding insulation to a damp Ashmore loft. Ring rather than using the form. The first visit finds what is causing it, such as a fan venting into the loft, eaves choked with old wool or a slipped tile, and stops the roof timbers getting wetter. Scheduled work is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Should the call go unanswered, we phone back as soon as we are able.
Worth knowing
In the conservation area, the loft is the one job nobody can object to
Ashmore has its own conservation area over the village, and what it controls is what the street can see. That is why external work changing the face of a building here turns into an application. The loft is the opposite.
It is inside, invisible from the pond and the lane, and on an old cottage it is one of the few big heat losses you can cut cheaply, so it is the one energy job you can get on with while everything else waits.
There are twenty six listed entries in and around Ashmore, and if yours is one of them the rule changes, because consent covers the inside of a listed building as well as the outside. Work in the roof space of a listed cottage is worth checking before anybody orders material. In practice a roll of mineral wool over a ceiling troubles nobody. Spray foam on the underside of the rafters is a different matter, it ruins any later roof repair, and we do not fit it.
Who you are dealing with
Who is doing your loft
Ashmore lies 20.2 miles from our base in Boscombe; we insulate lofts there and in Iwerne Minster, Sixpenny Handley, Tarrant Monkton and the chalk villages towards Blandford Forum. Dorset Council handles building control.
The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and you can check that record yourself. Thomas Hannen owns it and goes up your hatch himself to price the job. A verified customer's score of 10 out of 10 is on Checkatrade. The visit and the itemised written quote cost nothing. Before you book a visit in Ashmore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Ashmore?
Most repairs in Ashmore 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 Ashmore |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Ashmore. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Ashmore Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Ashmore. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about loft insulation in Ashmore
How long does a loft take?
Most are a day. Clearing the old material and bagging it is the morning, laying two fresh layers is the afternoon. A loft that has to be emptied first, or one where boarding comes up and a raised floor goes back, runs into a second day.
We had ours done years ago. Is it worth doing again?
Usually, and not because the old material failed. It settled. A layer laid at the depth people used then, compressed under years of boxes, leaves the U value of that ceiling nowhere near what Part L expects. Often we straighten what is between the joists and cross lay new over it.
Will insulating the loft make our condensation worse?
It can, if ventilation is ignored. Insulating the ceiling leaves the loft colder and moves the dew point, so warm wet air from the house finds a cold surface sooner. That is where black mould on the timbers and interstitial damp come from. Seal the vapour paths, starting at the hatch.
We keep things up there. Do we lose the loft?
No, but say so before the quote. Boarding straight onto the joists squashes the wool flat, and flattened wool is not insulation. We raise the floor on loft legs and board over that, leaving full depth underneath.
Does it show up on the heating bill or the EPC?
Both: a thin ceiling is one of the larger losses in a house of this age, so the thermal gain from a ceiling at full depth is the one people feel, and it lifts the fabric score on an EPC. Sealing the draught round the hatch is felt the same evening.
Nearby, and next door
Loft insulation near Ashmore
Nearby places we also cover for loft insulation, with straight-line distances from Ashmore, and the other trades we offer in Ashmore itself.
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Our other trades in Ashmore
Loft insulation guides
Part L: do you have to insulate when you re-roof? Loft condensation or a roof leak: how to tell PIR board vs mineral wool: which insulation?Everything we do in Blandford Forum Loft insulation, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a straight price for the loft
Thomas comes out, gets into the loft and puts what it needs in writing, line by line. The visit and the quote are free.