Loft insulation in Lyndhurst

Start with whether there is a floor at all. Plenty of the larger houses here were divided into flats or had the roof turned into rooms, and in those there is no cold loft to lay anything on. The insulation goes against the roof instead. Rigid board, PIR or Celotex, is cut to a tight fit between the rafters with a clear air gap left above it so the timbers can still dry, a second layer goes under the rafters so the rafters themselves stop being cold bridges, and a taped vapour control layer keeps household moisture out of the build up. Where a sloping ceiling or a dormer cheek has almost no depth to give away, a multi-foil quilt gets something worthwhile into very little space. Seal it up without a way out for the moisture and the damage is interstitial, which is the sort you find years later in the timbers. If you are in a flat, the void above you is often common parts, so the quote is written so it can go to a freeholder or an agent.

Where there is a proper loft, the work is depth. One thickness between the joists, a second cross laid over the joists running the other way so the timber is buried, and the two layers finish at roughly 270mm. Mineral wool, whether it is sold as glass wool or as rockwool, does the open ground. Batts fill the awkward bays, loose fill reaches where a roll will not, and sheep wool is there for anyone who wants it. All of it is aimed at one number, the U value over your ceiling, because that ceiling is where the biggest share of the heat loss goes and it is what you see on the heating bill and on an EPC.

Close to four in ten homes in the village were built before the First World War, and those roofs are cut on site out of rafters and purlins, with head height to work in and very often no underlay whatever behind the tiles or slates. Wind moves through them, which is why material is laid to stay put rather than rolled out and left. The ceilings below are frequently lath and plaster, which will not hold a person, so crawl boards go down first and nobody steps off them. Access is a hatch, so it is work at height from the first rung, and the ladder is set and footed properly.

Then the edges. Insulation finishes on the wall plate and stops there. Vent trays keep the air gap above it open. Cross ventilation then works its way up the slope and out under the ridge, and a ridge vent speeds that up where a roof has been given one. A breathable membrane is kinder to an old roof than bitumen felt underlay ever was. Insulating a ceiling always makes the space above colder and carries the dew point up with it, which is exactly why the air path matters more after the job than before it. Damp material, dark timbers, black mould and water running off the underside of the felt all say the same thing, and none of them is cured by another layer of wool.

Last come the things that live in the loft. The tank and its pipework get lagging. Cables and wiring come up on top of the insulation. Recessed lights and downlighters in the ceiling below take fire rated covers. Old wool that has settled thin, been compressed under a deck, gone patchy, been contaminated with droppings or gone missing at the edges is bagged where it lies and leaves with us. Where the loft is used, the floor is rebuilt above the work rather than on top of it, on legs, with the loft ladder set to the new platform height. The hatch has rigid board fixed to its back and a draught seal fitted round the frame.

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 Victorian cottage with a hatch over the stairs, a top floor flat in a divided house, and a detached house with a boarded loft full of boxes are three different mornings before any material 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.

We cover Lyndhurst, Emery Down, Bank, Minstead and the SO43 addresses around them, with the New Forest National Park Authority for planning and New Forest District Council for 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.