Loft insulation in Lymington

Lymington lofts are either cold loft floors or converted roofs, and the problems differ. A cold loft floor means a house where the ceiling has one flattened layer on it and the rooms below cool off as soon as the heating drops. A converted roof is one where the top bedroom is cold in winter and airless in summer, and nobody knows what, if anything, is behind the plasterboard.

They need different quotes, so they get different surveys. On a cold Lymington loft we measure the depth away from the hatch, test the air path over the wall plate and read the underside of the covering. On a converted roof there is nothing to measure, so it is a matter of working out how the slope was built, where the voids behind the knee walls run and whether anything was ever taped. Either way you get photographs, a free site visit and a free written itemised quote.

Where a Lymington roof is already a room in roof, the work becomes a warm roof. PIR rigid board such as Celotex is cut tight between the rafters with an air gap deliberately kept above it under the felt, a second layer goes across underneath them so the timber is not left bridging, the joints are taped, and a vapour control layer sits behind the plasterboard so moisture from the bedroom cannot get into the structure.

Multi-foil quilt earns its place in the shallowest strips where nothing else will fit. The parts people forget are the voids: the triangle behind each knee wall, the flat ceiling over the middle of the room, and the dormer cheeks, which are usually the coldest surfaces in the house. Skip those and you have insulated the easy part of the roof and left the draught exactly where it was.

A cold loft in the same street is simpler and the rules are firmer. First layer between the joists, friction fitted so nothing is open at the timber. Second layer cross laid over the joists at right angles, burying them so they stop carrying heat into the plaster. About 270mm all in is what a renovated ceiling is expected to reach under Part L in Approved Document L. Mineral wool roll on an open run, rockwool batts where the bays vary, glass wool, loose fill in the corners and sheep wool if you prefer a natural fibre. Whatever is up there now is read first: settled, compressed, patchy and stopping short of one wall is the usual state of it, and anything damp, dusty or contaminated with droppings comes out in bags.

Lymington terraces and semis add one detail that detached houses do not have. The loft ends at a party wall, and the last bay against it is the one that gets left out, because it is awkward to reach and easy to call finished. It gets the same depth as the middle of the floor. The gable end of a terrace is the other cold spot worth a look, and where a party wall stops short of the underside of the roof we will point it out rather than lay over the gap and say nothing.

Then the same finish as everywhere. Material runs out over the wall plate and stops there with a vent tray at each rafter, so an air gap stays open and cross ventilation still crosses the roof; block it and the dew point moves into the layer, interstitial condensation forms unseen, water collects on the underside of the felt and black mould follows on the timbers. A ridge vent or tile vents take over where the eaves are boxed in, and a breathable membrane changes the detail rather than the need. Fire rated covers over recessed lights and downlighters, cable and wiring lifted above the new layer, lagging on the cold water tank and its pipework, a board and a draught seal on the hatch, and storage put back on loft legs so the boarding and the raised floor clear full depth with the loft ladder reset to suit.

Thomas puts his head up through the hatch and then goes in, checking what is there, how deep it is and how air moves through the roof. On the eighties estate houses and post-war semis that make up most of Lymington, he usually finds trussed rafters with a thin, flattened layer of mineral wool between the joists.

A bungalow's shallow eaves are hard to reach. Your quote prices the survey, clearing and bagging the old layer, the new material and its depth, eaves ventilation, the hatch, pipework, and disposal.

In a Lymington loft one layer of rolls goes between the joists and a second runs across them. Anything you want to store sits on boarding raised on legs, so the insulation is not squashed. Cold water pipes and any tank are lagged, downlighters get proper covers, and the hatch is insulated and sealed. The landing is dust sheeted and swept, and the old material leaves with us. If we find a roof leak or damp timber, you are sent a photograph and a price first.

Laying insulation in a roof space is not development and needs no application, which Planning Portal guidance on insulation confirms. Building control can still apply, because regulation 23 requires a whole element to be brought up to standard if you renovate more than half of it. The Lymington conservation area covers the historic centre, and on a listed building consent covers the inside too, so we check that at the visit. Read the VAT rules on energy saving materials before you order.

Droplets under the felt, black mould on the rafters, or damp insulation all point the same way: warm, wet air is getting into a loft that cannot breathe. Stop drying washing indoors if you can, and check the bathroom fan is not ducted into the loft.

Phone rather than using the form. On the first visit we find where the moisture comes from, often a blocked eaves vent or insulation pushed hard against the felt, and fix that before more insulation goes in, because adding it first makes things worse. Planned loft work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If nobody answers, try again or wait for us to call back, which we do as soon as we can.

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A fair number of homes in Lymington are flats, and a good many of those are top floor flats in converted houses. The ceiling is yours. The roof space above it very often is not: leases usually keep the roof and the loft with the freeholder as part of the structure, along with the obligation to keep them in repair, which is the sort of thing section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 sits behind.

That changes what you should do first, and it is not complicated. Look at the lease, or ask the managing agent, before anyone orders material. If the loft is demised to you, the job runs exactly as it would in a house. If it is not, the freeholder has to agree, and in a block the cost may be theirs rather than yours, which is a much better outcome than paying for it yourself. We are happy to survey and quote either way, and to put the quote in a form you can hand to an agent. What we will not do is go into a roof space where the right to be there has not been settled.

Nearby places we also cover for loft insulation, with straight-line distances from Lymington, and the other trades we offer in Lymington itself.

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