Loft insulation in Mudeford

The top-up comes first. What is already in a Mudeford loft usually stays. We fluff up and straighten the old quilt where boxes have flattened it, fill any bare bays, and bring it level with the top of the ceiling ties.

Then a second roll of glass wool or rockwool is cross laid at right angles over the joists, which stops the timbers leaking heat and takes the total to about 270mm. That is the depth that meets the ceiling U-value of 0.16 which Approved Document L asks for when a loft is renovated.

Storage. Most Mudeford lofts from this period have a few sheets of chipboard nailed straight onto the ceiling ties, with the old quilt crushed flat beneath them. We lift the sheets, put in the full depth, and set a smaller deck back on plastic loft legs so there is air and wool underneath. A fold down loft ladder and a light on a switch by the hatch are worth adding while we are up there.

Cables, downlights and the tank. Wiring buried under a thick layer in a Mudeford loft can run warm, so it is lifted to sit on top. Recessed downlighters in the ceiling below get fire-rated hoods, so the insulation can be laid up to them safely. A cold water tank in the roof is lagged on its sides and lid with the pipework, and the patch of ceiling directly under it stays uncovered.

Dormer bungalows. A lot of Mudeford bungalows have been extended into the roof with a flat-roofed dormer across the back and a bedroom under the slopes. That room has no loft floor over it, so the slopes are insulated at the rafters instead: Celotex or similar PIR fitted in and beneath them, a ventilated gap kept under the felt or underlay, and a vapour check behind fresh plasterboard, aiming at 0.18. The small eaves voids either side are insulated too. If the dormer's felt top is leaking into that bedroom, it is re-covered first, ideally as a warm roof.

Clearing out first. Now and then the old quilt in a Mudeford loft is past saving: stained and wet under a slipped tile, or fouled by mice. That is bagged and taken away before anything new goes in, and you get a photograph of it before it goes.

The cottages by the quay and the low blocks. The older cottages near Mudeford Quay can have lath and plaster ceilings under a slate or clay roof with no felt at all. Those roofs breathe through the gaps, so the eaves are left wide open and the wool is laid loose, never packed tight against the slates. In the low blocks of flats from the seventies, the shared roof space usually belongs to the freeholder, so the managing agent instructs the work, and we price it for them.

The hatch. A bare hatch door is a thin panel with warm air leaking round every edge. A slab of rigid board glued to its back and a compressible seal on the frame put that right in half an hour. On a thermal camera it is often the coldest patch in the house, and it is the last draught to stop once the gaps and missing bays are filled. The heat loss you cut shows on the heating bill first and on the EPC after.

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 shallow bungalow roof worked on a crawl, a town house loft reached from a narrow landing hatch, and a converted bungalow with sloping ceilings cannot sensibly be priced as one job. 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.

We insulate lofts across Mudeford, Stanpit and Friars Cliff, from the quay and Avon Beach back towards Christchurch, in BH23, from our base in Boscombe, about four miles west.

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. Before you book a visit in Mudeford, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Mudeford 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.