Loft insulation in Broadstone
Loft top-ups, cleared and re-laid lofts and raised boarded storage across Broadstone and BH18, measured on a free visit and priced line by line.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Almost every Broadstone loft already has a thin layer in it from an earlier retrofit, so the work is adding a second layer over the joists rather than starting from bare ceiling. Depth in the middle is easy. The eaves, the hatch and the tank are where the job is won or lost.
People ring us for one of three reasons. Bedrooms that are cold at head height in a house that is otherwise fine. A loft boarded out years ago with the wool flattened underneath it. Or a tank up there that froze one winter and nobody has looked at since.
The site visit is free and it is a proper look. We go in, measure depth at the hatch, in the middle and out at the wall plate, and take photographs of the eaves and the corners so you can see the same things we can. Then a written itemised quote: clearing, material and depth, the edges, the hatch, the tank and the pipework, all on separate lines. If the loft is already sound, we will tell you and go away.
The work
From one thin layer to a proper depth
The second layer. What is nearly always up there is a single thickness of mineral wool pushed down between the joists and levelled off with them. It was fine for its day and it leaves the timber uncovered, so every joist is a cold bridge running through the ceiling. We straighten what is sound, fill the gaps where it has settled, then run a new unbacked roll over the top at right angles to the first. Cross laid like that it counts as two layers rather than one thick one, and the finished depth comes to about 270mm. Glass wool roll does most of it, with batts where bracing breaks the run up.
What comes out. Not everything is worth keeping. Wool compressed flat under boarding, anything wet or patchy, anything contaminated by droppings, and the old loose fill that migrates towards the eaves all get bagged up in the loft and carried down. That is a line on the quote before any new material appears, and it is the line most quotes leave off.
Eaves and ventilation. The insulation is taken out over the wall plate and stopped there, with the air gap above it held open by an eaves vent tray in each rafter bay. Cross ventilation from one side of the roof to the other is what keeps the timbers dry, and a lot of the roofs here have a bitumen felt underlay rather than a modern breathable membrane, which makes the eaves the only route the air has. Block them and the loft reaches dew point sooner than it used to: condensation drips off the felt, then dark mould spreads along the rafters.
The tank, the lights and the wiring. Houses of this era usually still have a cold water tank in the loft. Once the ceiling is properly insulated the loft gets colder, so the tank and its pipework need lagging and a lid, and no insulation is laid beneath the tank. Recessed lights get fire rated covers rather than being smothered, and cable is lifted and clipped above the new layer, since buried wiring runs hot.
Storage and sloping ceilings. If you use the loft, boarding goes on loft legs to make a raised floor clear of the full depth, with a platform at the loft ladder and an insulated, draught sealed hatch. Where a house has a room in the roof or a dormer with a sloping ceiling, the work is at rafter level instead: rigid board cut between the rafters with the ventilation gap kept open above, a layer of PIR under, and the vapour control taped through. That is a warm roof and it is quoted separately.
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 an existing roof is not development, so nothing needs a planning application, and Planning Portal guidance on insulation says as much. What does apply is building control, because renovating a thermal element rather than topping one up brings regulation 23 into play, with Approved Document L setting the U value to reach. No conservation area covers the housing in Broadstone and there are four listed entries in the area, and the council keeps the list if you want to check your own address. BCP Council handles both sides of it.
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 1960s bungalow with a hallway hatch and a fitted ladder, a chalet with the opening squeezed onto a small upper landing, and a house whose loft is already boarded out and full are three different starts to the day. 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. Broadstone is barely fifteen minutes from us, so a loft that is running with water usually gets looked at the same day or the next. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
A whole street of lofts at exactly the same stage
Nearly two thirds of the houses in Broadstone went up in the decades after the war, with the biggest push in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and they were built with nothing over the ceilings at all. Insulation arrived later as a retrofit, across the whole neighbourhood at much the same time and to the standard of that time. That is why your loft and your neighbour's tend to be in identical condition, and why heat loss upward is still the biggest item in the house.
It makes the work predictable in a useful way. The joists are shallow, so a single layer between them was never going to be deep enough, and there is almost always room to cross lay over the top without touching what is there. The cold water tank sits in the middle of the loft, the hatch is small and unsealed, and the run out to the eaves is where the original job stopped. So the quote for a house on these roads is nearly always the same shape: keep the sound material, clear the poor, cross lay, trays at the eaves, lag the tank, seal the hatch. If a neighbour has had theirs done, ask whether the edges and the hatch were in the price, because that is usually the difference between two quotes.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Broadstone, Merley, Corfe Mullen, Canford Heath, Upton and the BH18 addresses around them, with BCP 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
Broadstone questions we get asked
How long does a house like ours take?
Most are a single day. Straightening what is there, cross laying the second layer, fitting eaves trays, lagging the tank and sealing the hatch fits comfortably into one. It becomes two when the old material has to come out and be bagged, or when a boarded loft has to be lifted and relaid on legs.
Can you insulate around the water tank?
We insulate up to it and never under it. The point of leaving the ceiling bare beneath a tank is that a little warmth from the house below keeps the frost off it. The tank itself gets a jacket and a lid, and the pipework running to and from it is lagged, because once the loft is properly insulated it is a colder place than it used to be.
Is boarding over the top a problem?
It is if the boards sit straight on the joists. That squashes the wool to the depth of the timber and throws away most of the benefit, which is exactly what we find in lofts boarded years ago. Loft legs lift the boarding clear so the full depth stays uncompressed underneath, and you keep the storage you actually use.
Do we need permission from BCP Council?
No planning permission. Insulating a loft sits inside permitted development, there is no conservation area over the housing here, and the listed entries are elsewhere in the area, so an ordinary Broadstone house needs no consent. Building control only comes in if you are lining out at rafter level, and Approved Document L is the standard either way. The depth is recorded on an EPC, and you feel it on the heating bill through the winter.
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Want a straight answer on your loft?
We will measure what is up there, check the eaves and the tank, photograph the corners and put an itemised price in writing. The visit and the quote cost nothing.