Loft insulation in Canford Heath

The top-up comes first. What is there and still sound stays. Old wool that has settled, been compressed under boxes or left patchy is lifted and straightened, and any missing bays are filled.

On a Canford Heath estate roof the ceiling ties are the bottom chords of the trusses, set close together. An eco roll, glass wool or rockwool quilt fills between those ties to their top edge, and a second roll is laid across them, about 270mm in all, so the timber no longer carries heat out. For a renovated loft, Approved Document L asks for a ceiling U-value of 0.16, which that reaches. Going from a thin 1970s layer to full depth does more for heat loss through the ceiling than any other single job, and the heating bill and the EPC both show it.

Storage above the insulation. Boarding laid straight onto the joists of a Canford Heath loft squashes the wool and undoes most of its value. We fit loft legs and a boarded platform above the new depth, kept to a modest area near the hatch. A loft ladder and a light are easy to add at the same time.

The eaves. Air must be able to come in at the soffit and pass up under the felt. We fit a vent tray in each bay at the eaves and keep the new layer short of the edge, using a strip of rigid board where the roof is too low for quilt.

The bedroom over the garage. Many houses here have an integral garage with a bedroom on top, and that room loses heat downward as well as up. Its ceiling is part of the main loft and gets the same top-up. Its floor sits over an unheated garage, and the fix there is from below: insulation between the garage ceiling joists and a fire resisting board under it, which is set out on our insulation in Canford Heath page. We price both on one visit when you want the room warm.

Wiring, lights and the tank. Cables are lifted to lie on top of the insulation, not under it. Downlighters get fire rated covers. The cold water tank and its pipes are lagged, and the ceiling directly under the tank is left uninsulated so a little warmth reaches it and it does not freeze.

Rooms in the roof. Where a Canford Heath loft has been converted into a room in roof, with sloping ceilings and often a dormer, there is no floor to lay onto, so this is warm roof work. PIR board such as Celotex fits between and under the rafters, keeping an air gap below the underlay, with a vapour control layer and new plasterboard over it. The rafter level target is a U-value of 0.18. A multi-layer foil such as TLX can help where headroom is tight, alongside board rather than instead of it.

Other materials. Loose fill, wool batts, sheep wool and thin multi-foil all have a place, but for an open loft floor a mineral wool roll is the simplest way to reach the U value Part L asks for.

The hatch. Insulation board on the back of the hatch and a draught seal round the frame. It is small, but an unsealed hatch is usually the coldest patch on a thermal image of the ceiling.

When the old layer comes out. Insulation soaked by an old leak, fouled by birds or mice and contaminated with droppings, or full of debris is bagged and removed before the new layer goes in. We photograph it first.

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 detached house with a roomy loft and a hatch on the landing, a terraced house with a small loft over a narrow stair, and a bungalow with low eaves on every side sit at very different points on the price. 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.

We insulate lofts across Canford Heath and the rest of BH17, from Gravel Hill to Mannings Heath and from Adastral Square to Culliford Crescent, from our base in Boscombe, about six miles away.

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. Before you book a visit in Canford Heath, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Canford Heath 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.