Loft insulation in Boldre

Boldre lofts give themselves away in a few familiar ways. A house that heats up quickly and cools down just as fast. A landing that is always colder than the rooms either side of it. Or somebody has been up for the Christmas boxes, seen daylight round the edge of the roll, and wondered how long it has been like that.

At a Boldre house we start with a look rather than a price. What is up there now, how deep it really is once you push a rule into it, which way the joists run, whether the eaves are open, and whether anything has been wet. The site visit costs nothing and neither does the written quote. Where the loft is already sound we will tell you so and point you at the draughts instead.

Get the old layer honest. Insulation that went down years ago has usually settled, compressed where anyone has knelt on it, and gone patchy where somebody pulled it back to run a cable and never put it right. Bare strips between the joists, a missing metre round the tank, and nothing at all in the last run before the wall. Anything contaminated or damp is bagged and taken away. The rest is straightened, gaps closed, and kept.

Depth, in two layers. The finished job in a Boldre loft is about 270mm, and it matters far more how it is laid than what it is called. First layer of mineral wool roll between the joists, second layer cross laid over the joists so the timber is buried and stops working as a cold bridge. Glass wool is the usual roll, rockwool batts are useful in narrow bays, sheep wool goes down where somebody wants it, and loose fill fills the awkward triangles at a hip. Get that right and the ceiling reaches the U value Approved Document L expects.

Keeping the roof breathing. The insulation in a Boldre roof stops on the wall plate and the eaves stay clear. Vent trays hold the roll back off the felt so there is a continuous air gap and cross ventilation from one side of the roof to the other, and where the eaves cannot be opened up a ridge vent does the same job at the top. This is not optional detail. Insulating a ceiling makes everything above it colder, the dew point moves up into the roof, and warm vapour from the house then finds a cold felt to condense on. Black mould on the rafters and damp insulation follow. Approved Document F is the reason we look at ventilation before we look at depth.

The services and the hatch. Downlighters get fire rated covers rather than a handful of wool thrown over them. Cables come up out of the insulation and are clipped to the joists. A cold water tank and its pipework are now on the cold side of the ceiling, so they get lagged and jacketed. The hatch is insulated on its back and given a compression seal, since a bare hatch is a hole in an otherwise good ceiling.

Storage, and where the roof slopes. Boarding straight onto the joists of a Boldre loft squashes the wool flat and wastes the money, so where you want storage we raise a platform on loft legs above the full depth and board only that. Where a room in roof or a sloping ceiling is involved the work moves to rafter level, in rigid PIR board cut between the rafters with an air gap kept above it, another layer under, and taped joints so the vapour control is continuous. That is a warm roof and it is a different job from rolling out a loft floor.

Thomas climbs through the hatch of your Boldre loft himself. Up there he measures the depth of whatever is down already, checks the joists, the eaves, the tank and the pipes, and looks at the felt for condensation. His quote is set out line by line: the survey; clearing and bagging the old wool; the new mineral wool and how deep it will go; keeping the eaves open; the hatch; the pipework; and taking the waste away.

The first layer fills the gaps between the joists and the second is cross-laid over them, so the timber does not leave cold stripes across the ceiling below. Rolls go over the wall plate but stop short of the eaves, and vent trays hold a clear path for air. Tanks and pipes that end up in the cold are lagged. If you store things up there, loft legs raise the boarding above the new depth. The landing and stairs are dust-sheeted, and the old insulation and packaging go with us. Wet timber or a leak gets a photo and a price before anything else happens.

Loft insulation is not development, so there is nothing to apply for, as Planning Portal guidance on insulation says. Building control can come in under regulation 23 if more than half the roof is being renovated. The Forest South East Conservation Area does not touch work inside a loft. On a listed house, though, even work inside the roof space can need listed building consent from the National Park Authority, so check first.

Beads of water hanging off the felt, dark mould creeping along the rafters, or wool that is damp when you press it all say moisture is getting into the loft, as condensation or as a leak. The roof timbers take the damage if it is left.

Make sure the bathroom and kitchen fans work and that none of them blows into the loft, and hold off adding insulation, because more wool can trap more moisture. Use the phone rather than the form. The first visit looks at the ventilation, the felt and the roof above it, and tells you which of the two it is. Planned jobs run Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If you cannot reach us, we will get back to you as soon as we are able.

Call now: 07435 839745

Boldre sits open to the south west, and that matters more in a loft than most people expect. Wind driving at a gable or an open verge does not stop at the eaves.

It runs in under the tiles and along the top of the insulation, and the first metre or so of a mineral wool roll can be scoured of its still air like a duvet blown flat. The middle of the loft still performs. The perimeter, which is exactly where your outside walls are, quietly stops working.

The fix is not more depth in the middle. It is holding the edge down and taking the wind out of it: the roll butted properly over the wall plate rather than left short, vent trays fitted so the air path stays above the insulation instead of through it, and any gaps at the verge and the gable closed off. On an exposed plot that detail is worth more than the last 50mm of depth. When you are comparing quotes, ask whoever wrote them what happens at the eaves and at the gable end. If the answer is only a depth, you are being priced on the easy part.

Nearby places we also cover for loft insulation, with straight-line distances from Boldre, and the other trades we offer in Boldre itself.

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