Loft insulation in Blandford Forum
Two layers, the eaves left clear, and an itemised written price for the whole loft before anything is ordered.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
A loft in Blandford is insulated in two layers, one between the joists and one cross laid over them so the timber stops carrying heat straight out, to a finished depth of 270mm. The eaves are left open and the hatch is sealed.
Three calls come in more than any other. A back bedroom on an estate house that has never held its heat. A loft somebody insulated once, long ago, where the material now lies flat and thin between the joists. And condensation, usually noticed when a box comes down out of the roof damp on the underside. Blandford has two very different sorts of roof space, the old cut roofs of the town centre that you can walk about in, and the trussed roofs on the estates that you cannot. What we do in each is different, so we look first. The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote.
The work
Two kinds of roof space in one town
Trussed roofs, and what can be done in them. Anything built here from the late sixties on will have a trussed rafter roof: shallow ceiling joists, timbers at close centres and diagonal bracing running everywhere. You cannot move about freely and you should never cut a truss. It changes the method rather than the result. Material goes in from the hatch outwards in smaller lengths, and the second layer is laid across the bracing rather than lifted over it.
The old layer, and whether it stays. Most of these lofts already have something. It has usually settled to well under the depth it went in at, gone patchy at the edges and been pulled back in gaps for cables. If it is dry and clean we straighten it and keep it. If it is wet, compressed into the ceiling or contaminated with droppings, it comes out in bags and leaves with us before anything new is laid.
Material and depth. Mineral wool does most of it, glass wool or rockwool in a roll, the first layer cut to a friction fit between the joists and the second laid across them at right angles to 270mm finished. Batts are quicker where trusses are at odd centres, loose fill goes where nobody can crawl, and rigid board such as PIR or Celotex is for the places headroom will not allow a roll. Multi-foil and sheep wool are for the exceptions, not the rule.
The eaves, and the party wall. Insulation stops at the wall plate, and on a shallow truss that is exactly where somebody is tempted to stuff it. We hold the gap open with vent trays so air still crosses the loft under the felt. On a terrace or a semi the party wall is the other cold edge, and getting depth right into that corner matters more than another pass across the middle. A breathable membrane is kinder than old felt, and a ridge vent helps where eaves cannot be opened.
Storage, and the hatch. A trussed loft is not a store room, but people use them anyway. Boarding laid flat on the joists crushes the wool and wastes the work, so we build a raised floor on loft legs over a defined area and board that, keeping full depth underneath and the loft ladder usable. The hatch itself gets insulated on the back and draught sealed, which is the part most quotes never mention.
Services and sloping ceilings. Any cold water tank and its pipework get lagging once the ceiling below is warm and the loft is not. Cables are lifted and clipped over the top rather than buried, because wiring that cannot shed heat carries less current, and every recessed light or downlighter gets a fire rated cover. Where a room in the roof or a dormer already exists, the work follows the rafters instead: board between them with a clear gap to the underlay, a layer under, joints taped.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: the survey, clearing and bagging whatever is up there now, the material and its depth, keeping the eaves clear, the hatch and any pipework, and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Insulation inside a loft is not development, so there is no planning application, which Planning Portal guidance on insulation sets out. The standard the work has to reach comes from Approved Document L and building control is Dorset Council. Blandford has a great many listed entries in and around the old streets, and listed building consent reaches inside a listed building as well as outside, so on one of those we check before ordering. HMRC VAT Notice 708/6 covers the VAT position.
Cost
What decides the price of a loft
No rate per square metre, because the floor area is the easy part and the awkward edges are where the time goes.
Getting to it. A terraced house with the hatch over the stairwell, a semi with a wide landing, and a top floor flat reached from a shared landing are three different jobs before a roll is opened. A hatch on a landing you can stand a ladder under is one job. A hatch over a stairwell, a crawl space you can only move through on your knees, or a loft full of boarding that has to come up and go back, is time before any material is laid.
What is up there now, and what it is sitting on. Old material that has to come out, be bagged and taken away is a cost before anything new goes down, and so is a loft full of boxes that has to be emptied and put back. Joists at 400 centres with a flat run across them is a different afternoon from a trussed roof full of bracing.
Ventilation, and the edges nobody reaches. Insulation stops at the wall plate and the eaves have to stay clear, or you trade a warm bedroom for a wet roof. Getting depth right into the corners and around the hatch, boxing over downlighters and lagging anything that now sits in the cold, is most of the labour. Approved Document L sets what the work is expected to reach.
Comparing quotes? Ask what depth is actually being laid and in how many layers, whether the old material is coming out or being covered over, whether the eaves are being kept clear, what happens to anything you store up there, and whether the hatch and the pipework are included. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.
If the loft is wet
Water running off the felt, or mould on the underside
Ring rather than use the form. Droplets on the underside of the felt, black mould spreading across the roof timbers, or insulation that is visibly damp are all telling you the same thing: warm wet air is getting into a space that cannot breathe. That does not wait, because it is the timbers that pay for it. We look before anything is added, because putting more insulation into a loft that cannot ventilate makes it worse. The estate roofs here went up close together and behave the same way, so if a neighbour has found damp timbers it is worth looking in yours. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
The estate roofs all went on at once, and they have all settled
A large part of Blandford went up in one long run from the late 1940s to the early 1980s, and the peak of it was the 1970s and the years just after. That matters in a loft more than it does anywhere else in the house. Those roofs were trussed, the ceiling joists are shallow, and whatever insulation they were given at the time was a fraction of what is asked for now. Thirty and forty years later it has settled into a thin mat that follows every dip in the plasterboard.
So on this stock the answer is almost never to strip and start again. It is to straighten what is there, close the gaps at the edges and over the party wall, then cross lay a fresh layer over the joists and the bracing to bring the whole ceiling up together. Because these houses were built to the same pattern in the same few years, we can usually tell you at the visit what we expect to find before the hatch is open, and we will still open it before writing a price.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Blandford Forum, Bryanston, Stourpaine, Spetisbury, Winterborne Stickland and the Tarrant villages, with Dorset Council for planning and building control. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of 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
Blandford Forum questions we get asked
How long will it take?
A day for most houses here. The morning goes on clearing and bagging what is up there, the afternoon on laying two fresh layers. Add a second day where storage has to come down first or boarding has to come up and go back on a raised floor.
Can you insulate a trussed roof properly?
Yes. You work in smaller lengths and you never cut a truss or a brace. The second layer is laid across the bracing rather than fought over it, and the awkward corners near the eaves are done by hand. It takes longer than an old cut roof, which is why access is a line on the quote.
Ours was done in the eighties. Is that not enough?
It was enough then. Depth has moved a long way since, and a settled layer is thinner again, so the U value of that ceiling is well short of what Part L now expects. Cross laying over what is already there is usually cheaper than taking it out.
Will more insulation cause condensation?
Only where the air stops moving. Depth does not create moisture, it lowers the temperature above your ceiling, and the vapour your house already makes then settles on the coldest thing it can find. Keep the eaves running and shut the route through the hatch and it does not arise.
Do we lose the loft as storage?
Not if you tell us first. Boards straight on the joists flatten the wool and undo the job, so we raise the floor on loft legs over the area you actually use and board that. The rest stays at full depth.
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Thomas gets into the loft himself, photographs what is there and prices it line by line. The visit and the quote are free.