Loft insulation in Lilliput
Lofts topped up to full depth on the harbour edge of Poole, with the eaves kept open and the wind kept out of the insulation.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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For a loft in Lilliput the job is usually bringing the mineral wool up to roughly 270mm, a new roll crossing the old, while keeping the eaves open so the roof can breathe and sealing the edges against the wind that comes off the harbour. Nothing is priced until we have been up the ladder. For walls and floors, see insulation in Lilliput.
A thin loft in Lilliput shows itself in familiar ways. Upstairs never feels warm when a south westerly is blowing, however long the boiler runs, and the heating bill shows it. Someone has put their head through the hatch and found a thin, grey layer with years of suitcases pressed into it. Or there are drips on the felt and a musty smell after a cold spell.
Thomas climbs into your Lilliput loft with a torch and a tape. He checks the depth in different bays, how the eaves are ventilated, where the cables and the tank sit and what you keep up there, and then writes the price out item by item. Neither the visit nor the quote costs anything.
The work
What goes into the loft, and what stays out of the way
The depth is built up in layers. Old insulation in a Lilliput loft is often compressed, patchy or settled to half its depth. Whatever is still springy is kept and fluffed back up. New rockwool or glass wool roll goes between the joists until it is level with their tops, and a second roll is laid across them in the other direction.
Two layers, 270mm or so, and the joists themselves are covered, which matters because bare timber is a route for heat loss. Approved Document L sets a U-value of 0.16 for a ceiling when a loft is renovated, and that build-up meets it.
Keeping the eaves breathing. Most of the fiddly hours in a Lilliput loft are spent at the edges. We fit a plastic vent tray in every gap between the rafters, so the insulation cannot slump against the felt and close off the air gap that carries air in from the soffit. That cross ventilation is what keeps the timbers dry. Old roll stuffed into the eaves by an earlier installer is drawn back out.
Somewhere to put the boxes. Chipboard nailed straight to the joists of a Lilliput loft crushes the insulation flat. Instead a small deck is raised on loft legs clear of the new layer, usually a sheet or two beside the hatch, so the wool underneath keeps its full depth. A loft ladder and a light can go in on the same visit.
Cables, lights and the cold water tank. Wiring is brought up to sit above the new layer so it cannot overheat, recessed downlighters from the room below get fire-rated hoods, and the tank and any pipework in the roof are lagged. The patch of ceiling directly under the tank is left uncovered on purpose, so the heat rising from below keeps it from freezing.
Bedrooms under the slope. A Lilliput loft that is already a room, with sloping ceilings or a dormer, is insulated at the rafters instead: PIR board such as Celotex fitted between and beneath them, a ventilated gap left under the underlay, then a vapour control layer and fresh plasterboard. The figure to hit there is 0.18, and because the ceiling is replaced it is best timed with decorating.
Clearing out a spoiled layer. Old insulation that is wet, fouled with droppings or missing in whole bays is photographed, bagged up in the roof and removed before the fresh roll is laid.
Top floor flats along Sandbanks Road. Where a block or a divided house has one roof over several flats, the roof void usually belongs to the freeholder, and the hatch may be on a shared stair. Check the lease, then let the managing agent order the work; we quote whoever is responsible and carry the rolls up the common stair with the floors covered. Salt air matters in the roof too: tank lids, pipe clips and fixings in a loft near the harbour are checked for rust while we are up there.
The hatch door. A bare hatch is a draughty hole in the ceiling. Its back gets a slab of insulation and the frame a seal. A thermal camera shows it straight away, and so does the EPC.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One person to ring from the first visit to the last. 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.
Laying insulation inside a loft is not development and needs no planning permission, as the Planning Portal guidance on insulation confirms, even inside the Evening Hill conservation area, because nothing changes outside. Regulation 23 brings in building control only when more than half of a roof is being renovated, and here that is BCP Council. We are not VAT registered, so there is no VAT on our quote; registered firms zero rate insulation fitted in a home until 31 March 2027, 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 roomy loft over a house with a drive off Lilliput Road, a shallow roof void over a top floor flat reached up a shared stair, and a room in the roof behind a dormer 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.
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. If the felt is dripping after a cold, still night, check the eaves have not been packed solid with old insulation, and tell us when you ring. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Wind off the harbour and the edge of the loft
Wind reaching a roof in Lilliput has crossed open harbour water with nothing to slow it. On a blowy night that wind pushes in at the soffit vents and along the eaves, which is exactly what those vents are for, but it also blows through the edge of a loose fibre roll.
Engineers call it wind washing: cold air moving through the first half metre of insulation above the outside walls, so the ceiling at the edge of every room upstairs runs cold and the depth you paid for is not doing its job there.
The answer is not to block the vents, because a loft that cannot breathe gets condensation on the felt and mould on the timbers. It is to fit an eaves guard or a vent tray that holds the air in a channel above the insulation, and to lay the insulation tight to the wall plate beneath it. On the side of the house facing the water we take extra care over that edge. If your upstairs ceilings are cold along the outside walls and nowhere else, tell us when you ring, because that is usually where to start.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We insulate lofts across Lilliput and the rest of BH14, along Sandbanks Road and Lilliput Road to Evening Hill and Salterns, and on to Whitecliff, Canford Cliffs and Penn Hill, from our base in Boscombe, about five 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 Lilliput, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Lilliput?
Most repairs in Lilliput 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.
| Question | In Lilliput |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Lilliput. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Evening Hill Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Lilliput. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Lilliput. |
Questions
Questions about loft insulation in Lilliput
How much should go into a loft near the harbour?
About 270mm, the second layer crossing the first. Near the water the edge matters as much as the depth, so the wool at the eaves is held down under a guard where the wind would otherwise lift it.
Will VAT be on the bill?
No, because we are not VAT registered. For firms that are, insulation fitted in a home is zero rated until 31 March 2027.
Why are my upstairs ceilings cold along the outside walls?
Usually wind blowing through the edge of the insulation at the eaves. An eaves guard or vent tray and a tight edge fix it without blocking the ventilation.
Can I still store things in the loft?
Yes. A sheet or two of boarding by the hatch, lifted above the new depth on legs, keeps the Christmas boxes dry and the insulation uncrushed.
Nearby, and next door
Loft insulation near Lilliput
Nearby places we also cover for loft insulation, with straight-line distances from Lilliput, and the other trades we offer in Lilliput itself.
Loft insulation nearby
Our other trades in Lilliput
Loft insulation guides
Part L: do you have to insulate when you re-roof? Loft condensation or a roof leak: how to tell PIR board vs mineral wool: which insulation?Everything we do in Lilliput Loft insulation, all areas Every area we cover
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Find out what is in your Lilliput loft
Thomas goes up, measures what is there and checks the eaves, then puts an itemised price in writing. The visit and the quote are free.