Loft insulation in Holt
Two layers over the ceiling, the eaves left to breathe, and an itemised written price before anything is ordered.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Loft insulation in Holt means two layers of mineral wool, one friction fitted between the joists and one cross laid over them to a finished 270mm, with the eaves left clear and the hatch insulated and sealed.
Three things bring people to the phone. A room that will not hold its heat once the heating goes off. A look in the loft that shows thin, uneven material and bare timber round the edges. Or damp: mould creeping across the underside of the roof, or a musty smell every time the hatch comes off. Holt is spread out, and the houses are a mixture, so there is no single answer that fits all of them. What there is, is a proper look before anything is quoted. The site visit costs nothing and neither does the written itemised quote.
The work
Cut roofs, trussed roofs, and what each will take
Cut roofs and trussed roofs behave differently. An older roof here is usually cut on site, with purlins and rafters you can move about between, ceiling joists at irregular spacings and room to work. A modern one is trussed, shallow and full of bracing you must not cut. The first takes rolls quickly and holds boarding well. The second wants smaller lengths, more time at the edges, and a second layer laid across the bracing rather than fought over it.
What comes out before anything goes in. Old material has usually settled to well under its original depth, gone patchy, and been pulled back in gaps for cables and aerial leads. Dry and sound, we straighten it and keep it. Wet from an old leak, crushed under boards or contaminated with droppings, it is bagged and taken away with us, because burying a problem under a new roll only hides it.
Material and depth. Mineral wool covers most lofts, glass wool or rockwool in a roll, the first layer between the joists and the second across them to 270mm finished. That cross laid layer is what stops the joist itself acting as a cold bridge. Batts help where the joists sit at irregular centres, which is common in an old cut roof, loose fill goes where nobody can crawl, and rigid board like PIR or Celotex is for tight headroom.
Ventilation, and the edges. Insulation stops at the wall plate. Vent trays hold the air gap open so cross ventilation carries on under the felt, and where a roof has been re-covered on breathable membrane the detail changes slightly. Older roofs with no underlay ventilate themselves through the tiles, which helps, but loose material shifts up there and has to be held down. A ridge vent covers the case where the eaves cannot be opened.
Everything else that is up there. A cold water tank and its pipework want lagging once the loft is cold. Cables get lifted and clipped over rather than buried, because wiring that cannot lose heat carries less current, and recessed lights need fire rated covers. The hatch gets insulated on the back and draught sealed. Where storage matters, a raised floor on loft legs keeps full depth under the boards. Sloping ceilings and dormers follow the rafters instead, with a clear gap to the underlay and 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.
Loft insulation is work inside the building. It is not development, so there is no planning application, which Planning Portal guidance on insulation sets out. Approved Document L is the standard it has to reach and Dorset Council is building control. Green Belt sits over this parish but it bears on extensions and outbuildings, not on what goes over your ceiling. 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. An old cottage with a trap over a cupboard, a farmhouse with a walk about roof space, and a modern house with a shallow trussed loft are three different mornings. 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. Houses out here are often on oil or a heat pump, so a cold roof space and a bathroom fan venting into it will show up on the running cost long before anybody notices the timbers. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Nothing here is controlled unless the building itself is listed
There is no conservation area over Holt, so for most houses here nothing about appearance is controlled and there is genuinely nothing to apply for. That is worth saying plainly, because people assume a village in this part of Dorset must be tied up in restrictions. It is not, and loft insulation would be outside them anyway, being inside the building and invisible from the lane.
The exception is the listed buildings, and there are thirteen entries in and around the parish. On a listed building consent covers the inside as well as the outside, so work in the roof space of a listed cottage is worth checking before material is ordered. In practice mineral wool laid over a ceiling is the least contentious thing you can do to an old building, because it is reversible and it touches nothing. Spray foam under the rafters is the opposite, it makes any future roof repair a problem, and we do not fit it on any roof.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Holt, Furzehill, Stone, Wimborne Minster, Ferndown and Merley in the BH21 postcodes, 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
Holt questions we get asked
How many days is it?
One for most roofs. The old material has to come out and go into bags before anything else happens, which is the slower half. Where a roof space is full of stored things, or boards have to be lifted and reset on legs, allow two.
Our roof has no felt under the tiles. Is that a problem?
Not in itself. An unfelted roof ventilates through the tiles, so condensation is less likely than in a sealed one. What it does mean is wind moving loose material about, so the edges are held down and the depth kept where it belongs.
Is it worth adding to what is already there?
Nearly always. Old material settles rather than fails, and a settled layer leaves the U value of that ceiling well short of what Part L now expects. Cross laying new over the old costs less than clearing it and starting again.
Will it make the loft damp?
It only happens where the air has stopped moving. Depth over the ceiling makes the roof space colder, and moisture already in the house then condenses on the coldest thing up there, which is a rafter. Open eaves and a sealed hatch keep the timbers out of it.
Do we need anything from the council?
No planning application. Insulation inside a loft is not development. If the house is listed, consent reaches internal work and is worth checking first, and building control sets the standard either way.
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Thomas comes out, gets into the roof space and writes down what it needs, line by line. The visit and the quote are free.