Loft insulation in Moordown

What comes out first. After ninety-odd years of cables being run across it, the old glass wool in a Moordown loft is usually compressed, settled and patchy, sometimes contaminated with droppings where birds got in under the hips. Dry, sound wool stays. Anything spoiled is bagged in the roof and carried down sealed. Loose grey or gold granules may be vermiculite, so we stop and have those tested before anything is disturbed.

Two layers, crossed. The first mineral wool roll fills between the old ceiling joists, which in a twenties house in Moordown are often irregular, so it is cut to each bay. The second runs across the joists so the timber no longer bleeds heat. Rockwool batts suit the short bays under the hips. That gets the ceiling to the U-value of 0.16 that Approved Document L asks for on a renovated loft, and it takes the heating bill down with it.

Keeping the eaves open. Air has to move in at the eaves and across a Moordown roof, or condensation forms on the underside of the felt and drips onto the new wool. We fit vent trays at each rafter bay so the insulation reaches the wall plate without blocking the air gap. Old bitumen felt holds more moisture than a breathable membrane, so we check it for wet patches first.

Roofs with no felt. Many Moordown roofs were laid with no underlay at all, so from the loft you can see the backs of the tiles and daylight between them. That roof breathes well, but driven rain and powder snow can blow in, and wet wool is useless. We lay the new layer loose and keep it off the tiles, and we never recommend foam sprayed onto the underside, which traps moisture against the battens and can put off mortgage lenders. A breathable membrane goes in properly when the roof is next re-covered.

Storage and access. Chipboard screwed flat to the joists of a Moordown loft crushes any new layer. We take it up, put the full depth in, and relay a smaller deck on loft legs by the hatch so you keep somewhere for the suitcases. A loft ladder can go in at the same visit, and the hatch is insulated and draught sealed.

Pipes, tanks and wiring. Once the ceiling is insulated the roof space runs colder, so the cold water tank gets a jacket and every pipe in the loft is lagged. Old cables are lifted clear of the wool and recessed lights get fire-rated covers.

Sloping ceilings. Where a bedroom has been made in the roof, there is no loft floor to lay onto. Celotex or a similar PIR board is fitted in and below the rafters to 0.18 at rafter level, and that is priced as a job of its own.

Flats over the Wimborne Road shops. The roof space above a flat over a shop is normally the freeholder's, not the flat owner's, and the hatch is often in the flat's own landing or a shared stair. We quote whoever holds the freehold, arrange access with the tenant, and carry everything through the stair rather than the shop. A landlord letting one of the many rented houses in Moordown gets photographs of the finished depth for the file.

When we would say wait. If the roof space is damp from a slipped tile or a bathroom fan blowing into it, that gets fixed before any new wool goes down.

One person to ring from the first visit to the last. 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.

Loft insulation is not development, so there is no planning application and no permitted development right is used, as the Planning Portal page on insulation confirms. If more than half of a roof is being renovated, regulation 23 brings in building control, and here that is BCP Council. Energy saving materials fitted in a home are zero rated until 31 March 2027 under HMRC notice 708/6, and we are not VAT registered, so there is no VAT line on our quote.

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. If you can see water on the felt or the wool is damp, keep stored boxes off the ceiling and ring before the next cold spell, because wet wool does not insulate. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.

Call now: 07435 839745

Many of Moordown's houses were built in the 1920s and 1930s, and a lot of roofs of that age are hipped, sloping down on all four sides rather than ending in a gable. That is good for wind, but it means the eaves run round the whole loft, and at the corners where the hips come down the space gets very low. Those corners are exactly where an old layer stops short, because nobody could reach them with a roll.

So on a hipped roof we treat the edges as the job, not the middle. We crawl or use a push board to get wool right to the wall plate at every side and into the corners under the hips, and fit a vent tray in each bay so the air still gets through. Ask any quote how it will reach the edges of a hipped loft, because a loft laid deep in the middle and thin at the edges still leaves cold ceilings around every outside wall, and that is where condensation and black mould start.

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

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