Loft insulation in Lytchett Matravers

The boards come up first. A loft gets boarded for the suitcases and the Christmas box, the boards go down straight onto the joists, and whatever is underneath spends the next twenty years compressed to nothing.

So they come up, what is under them is teased back open and straightened, and the floor goes back on loft legs standing above the finished depth. You keep the storage and gain the depth, which is the whole reason for doing it that way round.

Depth, and the run that does the work. In a Lytchett Matravers loft the layer between the joists is half a system on its own. A second run goes on top of the joists rather than between them, crossing the first at right angles, and that is what stops the timber carrying heat out through your ceiling. The pair of them at about 270mm is the u value Approved Document L expects after a renovation, under Part L. Mineral wool does most of it: glass wool as a roll, or rockwool as a batt where the bays are awkward. Loose fill for anywhere the bracing leaves no room to open a roll out. Sheep wool if you ask. Rigid PIR board once the headroom is gone, and multi-foil quilt after that.

The eaves are not storage either. People push boxes and old material out into the eaves and close off the only path the roof has to breathe through. The new layer stops on the wall plate, a vent tray in every bay holds the gap over it open, and the cross ventilation carries on running soffit to soffit. Old bitumen underlay over solid boxed soffits is a roof that is choked already, so a ridge vent is fitted before a single roll is opened. The sign it has gone wrong is condensation on the felt and black mould across the timbers, and BS 5250 is the code covering how moisture ought to be managed in a building. Interstitial condensation will have been forming inside the layer for months before any of that becomes visible.

The hatch, the ladder and anything wired. A sealed loft floor is undone by an open hatch, so the hatch itself gets insulation on the loft side and a draught seal round the frame, and the loft ladder is tried to make sure it still swings clear of the raised floor. Recessed lights are boxed over with rated covers. Wiring gets dressed on top of the new depth rather than left underneath it, since cable packed into wool runs warm. The cold water tank and everything plumbed to it are out in the cold now, so lagging goes on. How we reach the loft is settled at the survey: indoors or not, this is work at height. And where the roof is already a room none of this is the answer. A room in roof is done at the rafters: rigid board in the bays, more of it fixed below, and a vapour control layer taped through so the dew point never reaches anywhere it could wet the structure. Sloping ceilings and dormer cheeks are all part of that same layer.

The floor area is the easy part. The awkward edges are where the hours go. Getting in. A hatch over the landing that you can stand a ladder under is quick. A hatch over the stairs, a crawl space you can only cross on your knees, or a loft full of boxes to move first all take time before anything is laid.

What is up there. Old quilt that is dry but compressed can often stay as the first layer, with the new laid across it. Wet, dirty or rodent-damaged material has to be bagged and taken away.

Boarded floors. If you store things up there, raising the boards on loft legs lets you keep the storage and still get the full depth underneath. That is timber and labour on its own line.

The edges. Eaves trays keep the air path open, downlighters are boxed over, and pipes and tanks that now sit in a colder loft are lagged. Approved Document L sets what the work should reach.

Put these to any competing quote: what depth, in how many layers, is old material coming out or staying, are the eaves being kept clear, and are the hatch and pipework included?

The person who climbs through your hatch to price it is Thomas Hannen, whose business this is. We are based in Boscombe, about eleven miles from Lytchett Matravers, and cover Lytchett Minster, Upton, Organford, Sturminster Marshall and the BH16 addresses around them.

Dorset Council handles planning and building control. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales with company number 15471719. Our verified 10 out of 10 sits on Checkatrade. The survey costs you nothing and nor does the written, itemised quote. Before you book a visit in Lytchett Matravers, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Lytchett Matravers 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.