Loft insulation in Burley
Full depth over the joists, the eaves left open, and nothing on the roof for anyone to object to.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
The far edge of a loft decides whether the rest of it works. Insulation has to reach the wall plate and stop dead there, with the air path above it left open, and getting that wrong is the single most common fault we find in older roofs around here.
People generally ring for one of two reasons, and they look like opposites. The first is cold: a bedroom under the slope that never holds its heat, or a whole cottage that costs a fortune to keep warm. The second is wet: droplets hanging off the underside of the felt, dark staining creeping along the rafter feet, a corner of the wool that squeezes water out of it.
They are usually the same fault seen from either end. Somebody added depth, ran out of headroom at the edge, and pushed the material on into the eaves to make it look finished. So the first visit is a proper survey rather than a price: what is up there, how deep it genuinely is, whether the wall plate still has daylight over it, what the roof is made of and how the air was meant to move. Photographs of the lot, then a free written itemised quote. The site visit is free too.
The work itself
Where the wool stops matters more than where it starts
Start at the edge, because that is where these jobs are won or lost. The material is carried out across the ceiling until it sits over the wall plate, and there it stops. Above it a vent tray at each rafter holds an air gap open, and along that gap cross ventilation runs from one eaves to the other and takes the moisture out of the roof. Ram the wool on past the plate and none of that happens. The dew point moves into the layer, interstitial condensation forms out of sight, water runs off the underside of the felt onto the insulation, and black mould works its way along the timbers. Approved Document F is the standard for it. Where a roof has boxed soffits that cannot be opened up, a ridge vent or a run of tile vents does the job instead, and a modern breathable membrane changes the detail rather than the requirement.
Then the depth, which is the easy part once the air is sorted. One layer between the joists, friction fitted so there is nothing open at the sides. A second cross laid over the joists at right angles, burying the timber so it stops carrying heat straight down through the ceiling. About 270mm all in is the mark a renovated ceiling is expected to hit under Part L in Approved Document L, and it is the biggest single reduction in heat loss most old houses here have left. Mineral wool roll on the open runs, rockwool batts where the bays are all different widths, glass wool, loose fill where the timber leaves no other way in, sheep wool if you want a natural product.
Older roofs around the village take a bit more thought. A cut roof with purlins and no underlay at all breathes beautifully, which is a help, but the wind gets in and shifts loose material about, so the layer is cut in and closed off at the perimeter rather than left to lift. Newer houses and extensions are trussed, and there everything is fed in from the hatch because the bracing will not let you move about. Either way it is work at height even though you are indoors, and the ladder, the hatch and the crawl boards are settled before anything else.
Rural lofts collect things, so there is nearly always a clear out. Material that has settled, gone patchy, been compressed under storage or is contaminated with droppings comes out in bags and goes on the van, and if something has been getting in through the roof we show you where rather than covering it over. After that the fittings: fire rated covers over every recessed light and downlighter, cable and wiring clipped above the new layer instead of buried in it, lagging on the cold water tank and its pipework now they sit in cold air, a board and a draught seal on the hatch, loft legs and a raised floor where you want storage so the boarding does not crush what is underneath, and the loft ladder checked against the new height. Where a room has been built into the roof already, the job moves to rafter level as a warm roof: PIR rigid board such as Celotex cut tight with an air gap kept above it, a layer under the rafters, taped joints, and multi-foil quilt in the sloping ceiling and dormer cheeks where the depth has run out.
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.
The insulation itself needs no permission. It is inside the building, so it is not development, which Planning Portal guidance on insulation confirms. Burley has its own conservation area and sits inside the National Park, so what is controlled is the outside: a rooflight or a run of tile vents on a slope the street can see is an application, and National Park heritage and conservation guidance sets out how the Authority looks at it. regulation 23 is the part that always applies, since renovating more than half of a thermal element brings the whole of it up to the Part L standard, and permitted development rights are narrower inside the Park in any case, and insulation in a home is treated differently for VAT under HMRC VAT Notice 708/6.
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 cottage with a small hatch over the stairs, a modern house with a trussed roof full of bracing, and a bungalow with a boarded loft full of boxes are three different mornings before any material 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. Burley is a bit under eleven miles from us, so we come out with everything on the van and settle the ventilation before anybody talks about adding depth. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Inside the Park
The one improvement here that nobody has to approve
The village has its own conservation area and the whole of it sits inside the National Park, so almost every improvement to a house here starts with a conversation about how it will look. Insulating the loft is the exception. It happens under the tiles, nobody outside can see a millimetre of it, and there is no application to make to anybody.
That is worth knowing because it changes the order you spend in. If the cottage is cold and the budget is finite, the loft comes first: the largest loss in the building, the cheapest to put right, and the only part of the fabric that cannot be argued about on appearance. The line falls at the roof surface. Anything that shows changes the picture, and on an older roof the usual reason for wanting something to show is ventilation, so where we can we take the air at the eaves and through the soffit rather than putting vents on a slope the lane can see. Where a slope vent is genuinely the only answer, National Park heritage and conservation guidance sets out how the National Park Authority looks at it, and on a listed cottage consent reaches inside the building as well as out.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Burley, Bransgore, Crow and the BH24 addresses around Ringwood East, with the New Forest National Park Authority for planning and New Forest District Council for 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
Questions people in Burley ask
How do we tell if our eaves have been blocked up?
On a bright day you can often see it from inside. Kneel at the edge of the loft with the light off and look along the wall plate: an open eaves shows a thin line of daylight or at least a draught on the back of your hand. If the wool runs solidly into the corner and the air stops dead, it has been filled. The other sign is on the timbers, where the rafter feet go dark before anything else does.
Is it worth doing if the roof has no felt under the tiles?
Yes, and that roof is easier to get right than a sealed one, because it ventilates itself. The difference is in the finish: air moving through the space will lift and shift a loose layer, so it is cut to fit, closed off at the perimeter and held down rather than laid and left. What you should not do is felt an old roof to make the house warmer. That is how dry timbers turn into wet ones.
Can you work around a thatched roof?
Thatch is a different trade and we do not touch it. What sits below it is a separate question and we are happy to look, but on that sort of roof the ventilation and the fire detailing have to be thought through by somebody who knows the covering, so we would tell you to get that advice first rather than lay material and hope.
Do we need building control for the loft floor?
Not for laying insulation over a ceiling on its own. Building control comes into it when the roof itself is renovated, or when the space is converted into a room, and then the whole element has to reach the current standard rather than just the part you touched. We tell you which side of that line your job sits on at the survey.
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Book a look in the loft
We come out, measure what is up there and put the depth, the ventilation and the hatch in writing. The visit and the quote are free.