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.
Last updated
Many Longham houses sit under a trussed roof, with a shallow tie, bracing in the way and an original layer that stops short of the eaves. The work is a top-up to about 270mm of glass wool or rock wool, cross laid over the joists and taken out to the wall plate without blocking the air. Boards go back on legs, and the tank and its pipes are insulated. Walls and floors are on insulation in Longham.
Cold outside walls upstairs, crushed wool under boards and proud joists usually bring it to a head in Longham. 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 the Longham loft 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 in a Longham loft that is 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. In a Longham loft, 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
Topping up a bungalow loft, from hatch to eaves
Thomas goes up into your Longham loft and looks at what is there before he prices it. Over a bungalow the loft runs the whole length of the house, which makes it one of the most worthwhile lofts to insulate, and on a hipped roof it runs down low at every side.
The written figure for a Longham loft is broken into the survey, bagging and removing the old quilt, the new material and how thick it goes, trays to hold the eaves open, the hatch, lagging, and the tip run. Crawl boards go in first, cables are lifted to lie on top, the new quilt goes across the joists in two layers crossed over each other, the pipes and tank are wrapped, and the hatch lid gets its own insulation and a draught seal. Bags come down one at a time, and the hall and landing are hoovered before we leave. Rotten timber or a roof leak spotted up there gets a photo and a price, and waits for you.
Insulating an existing loft is not development, as Planning Portal guidance on insulation explains. Building control has more say: regulation 23 brings a renovated thermal element up to standard, and Approved Document L sets that standard. Dorset Council is the authority. With no conservation area in Longham, an ordinary house needs no consent, and VAT on the materials follows HMRC VAT Notice 708/6.
Cost
The awkward edges are where a loft costs time
The hatch sets the pace. A landing hatch with a ladder is easy. A small hatch in a Longham bungalow hall ceiling, or one above the stairs in a chalet, slows every trip up and down with a roll of quilt.
The roof shape. A hipped bungalow roof comes down to the ceiling on every side, and the last stretch before the wall plate is where the depth is usually missing. Reaching in there, and fitting eaves trays so the air still gets through, is slow work on your knees.
What is there now. Most Longham lofts of this age have a thin, flattened layer of old mineral wool. If it is dry, the new layer goes over it. If it is wet, crushed or full of mouse droppings, it is bagged and removed first. Stored boxes to shift and put back, or boards to lift, are extra hours.
Keeping storage. If you want to keep using the loft, the boards have to go up on raised legs so the new quilt is not squashed, and that is priced separately. Approved Document L sets the depth the work should reach, and squashed quilt does not reach it.
Downlighters and pipes. Each one needs a cover or lagging.
Questions for another quote: what depth, and in how many layers? Is the old material coming out? Are the eaves kept clear, and is the hatch included?
If the loft is wet
Droplets on the felt or mould on the rafters
Ring instead of using the form if water is beading on the underside of the roof felt, black spots are spreading over the rafters, or the quilt feels damp in your hand. Moist air from the rooms below is condensing in a roof space with nowhere to vent, and it is the timber that suffers.
Hold off adding more insulation until the reason is found. Shut the bathroom door while the shower is on, and look to see if the extractor duct simply ends in the loft. On the first visit we trace the cause, usually blocked eaves, a missing vent or a leak, and put that right before any talk of depth. Day work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we are up a roof and miss you, we phone back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
A trussed roof is not a floor, whatever it looks like
Most of the houses in Longham 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.
In a trussed Longham loft, 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. 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
Your loft priced by Thomas, not a call centre
Our base in Boscombe is 4.7 miles from Longham, and we cover the village with Ferndown, West Parley, Hampreston, Wimborne and the BH22 addresses around them. Dorset Council handles building control. You deal with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Longham, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
The business is owned by Thomas Hannen, who climbs into the loft himself before writing a price. On Checkatrade a verified customer scored us 10 out of 10. The survey visit is free, and so is the written quote listing each item.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Longham?
Most repairs in Longham 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 Longham |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Longham. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Longham, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Longham. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Longham. |
Questions
Questions about loft insulation in Longham
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, never 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 instead of topping 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 one of the biggest items 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.
Nearby, and next door
Loft insulation near Longham
Nearby places we also cover for loft insulation, with straight-line distances from Longham, and the other trades we offer in Longham itself.
Loft insulation nearby
Our other trades in Longham
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 Kinson Loft insulation, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
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.