Loft insulation in Longham
Loft top-ups, cleared roof spaces and raised boarded storage in Longham and BH22, worked out 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.
Most Longham houses sit under a trussed roof, which means a shallow ceiling tie, a lot of bracing in the way and an original layer of insulation that stops well short of the eaves. The work is a second layer cross laid over the joists, taken properly out to the wall plate.
Three things usually prompt the call. Upstairs rooms that stay cold along the outside walls. Boarding put down years ago with the wool crushed flat beneath it. Or a look through the hatch that shows thin grey material with the joists standing proud of it.
We come and see it first, and the visit is free. That means going in, measuring the depth at the hatch, out in the middle and again at the edge, and looking at the eaves rather than guessing at them. You get photographs of the corners, the hatch, the tank and anything else that needs dealing with, then a written itemised quote where the clearing, the material, the edges, the hatch and the pipework are all separate lines.
The work
Getting proper depth into a trussed roof
The layer that is usually missing. What is up there is normally one thickness of mineral wool pushed between the joists and levelled with them. That leaves every timber uncovered, working as a cold bridge through the ceiling. Sound material is straightened and stays, gaps where it has settled are filled, and a new unbacked roll is cross laid across the joists at right angles. Two layers laid that way take the finished depth to about 270mm, which is the sort of figure a modern U value asks for.
Clearing what is finished. Anything wet, compressed under old boarding, patchy or contaminated by droppings comes out, bagged in the loft and carried down, and so does old loose fill that has worked its way into the eaves. Covering poor material with good material buys you a damp problem rather than a warm house.
Working around the bracing. A trussed roof is a set of engineered frames with diagonal bracing between them, not an open space. Nothing is cut, notched or moved to make the job easier. We work off boards laid across the joists, feed material through the truss webs and finish the far corners first, because the corner reached last is the one that ends up short. It is slower than an old cut roof and that shows as labour rather than as a surprise on the day.
The eaves and the ventilation. Insulation runs out over the wall plate and stops there, with a vent tray in each rafter bay holding the air gap open so cross ventilation still crosses the loft. In a shallow trussed roof the triangle at the edge is tight, which is exactly why the depth so often tapers away there. Push material into the eaves instead and the roof stops drying: condensation gathers on the underside of the felt, then dark mould along the timbers. A breathable membrane copes better than old bitumen felt, but neither works with the eaves stuffed.
Services, storage and roof rooms. Recessed lights take fire rated covers, cable and wiring are lifted and clipped above the new layer, and the tank and its pipework are lagged with a lid fitted once they are on the cold side. The hatch gets an insulated board and a draught seal. Storage goes on a raised floor built on loft legs, kept to the area you actually use, with a platform at the top of the loft ladder. Where a house has a room in the roof, a dormer or a sloping ceiling, it becomes rafter level work: rigid board between the rafters with the air gap kept open above, PIR beneath and the vapour control taped through.
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.
There is no planning application for this. Insulating an existing roof space is not development, as Planning Portal guidance on insulation explains, so it sits within permitted development. Building control is the part with teeth, because regulation 23 brings a renovated thermal element up to current standard and Approved Document L sets what that standard is. Dorset Council is the authority here. There are 13 listed entries in the area and no conservation area over the housing, so an ordinary Longham house needs no consent, and the VAT position for energy saving materials follows 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 detached house with a landing hatch and a fitted ladder, a bungalow where the opening is over the stairs, and a loft already boarded and full of boxes are three different mornings before a roll 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. Longham is about ten minutes from us, so a loft that is wet gets seen the same day more often than not. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
A trussed roof is not a floor, whatever it looks like
Most of the houses here went up between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, which is when prefabricated trusses replaced roofs cut on site. It changed what a loft is. The timber across the bottom of a truss is a ceiling tie, sized to hold up a ceiling and a layer of insulation, not to carry the contents of a garage. It is also shallower than the joists in an older house, which is why one layer between them was never going to be deep enough here.
Two practical things follow. First, storage has to be built rather than assumed: boarding on loft legs spanning across the ties, kept sensible in weight and close to the hatch and the walls rather than piled in the middle. Second, nothing in a truss gets cut, notched or unbolted to make room, and that includes the diagonal bracing people are tempted to move. If your loft needs a proper storage deck, we will say what it can take and where. If somebody has already sawn through a truss web to make a gangway, we will point it out, because that is a job for a roofer before it is a job for us.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Longham, Ferndown, West Parley, Hampreston, Wimborne and the BH22 addresses around them, 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
Longham questions we get asked
How long does a loft like ours take?
Most are a day. Straightening what is there, cross laying the second layer, fitting the eaves trays, lagging the tank and sealing the hatch fits into one visit. It runs to two when the old material has to come out and be bagged, or when boarding has to be lifted and relaid on legs.
Can we board it out for storage afterwards?
Yes, on legs rather than straight onto the timber. Boards laid flat compress the wool to the depth of the tie and lose most of the benefit. Loft legs hold the deck clear of the full depth. In a trussed roof we also keep the boarded area modest and near the walls, because a ceiling tie was never designed as a floor joist.
Do we need permission or building control?
Not planning permission. Insulating a loft in an existing house is not development, so there is nothing to apply for and no conservation area applies here. Building control comes in if you line out at rafter level rather than top up over the ceiling, and Dorset Council handles that. Approved Document L is the standard the work is expected to reach.
Will it make a difference we can feel?
Upstairs, yes, and quickly. Heat loss through the ceiling is the biggest single item left in most houses of this age, so getting the depth up and the edges finished changes how the bedrooms feel at head height. Sealing the hatch takes out the draught that usually comes with it, and the depth is recorded on an EPC when one is next done.
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Want to know what your loft is actually carrying?
We will measure the depth, look at the eaves and the bracing, tell you what the roof can take for storage, and put an itemised price in writing. The visit and the quote are free.