Loft insulation in Poole
Clearing, topping up and laying to full depth in Poole roof spaces, from Parkstone semis to converted town houses with one shared void above them.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
The straight answer
The ceiling is the cheapest surface in your house to put right, and in Poole it is the one most often half done. Two layers of mineral wool, the second cross laid over the joists, the eaves left open and the hatch sealed. Get those four right and the rest of the house behaves differently.
People here ring about three things. A top floor that is cold from November and unbearable in a heatwave. A loft boarded end to end for storage, with the insulation underneath pressed to a mat nobody has seen for twenty years. And condensation, which shows up as water beading on the underside of the felt, damp patches through the wool and black mould creeping along the rafters.
We go up and look before we quote. That means measuring what is genuinely there rather than guessing from the hatch, finding which way the joists run and at what centres, checking the wall plate and the eaves, and working out whether the roof space over your ceiling is yours alone. The site visit is free, the written quote is itemised, and if the ceiling is already sound we will tell you where the heat is really going.
The work
What Poole roof spaces need, one at a time
Clearing before laying. Almost nothing we open is at the depth the owner thinks. Insulation settles under its own weight, compresses hard wherever boards or knees have been on it, goes missing in patches where cables and aerials were run, and stops short of the wall on every side. In older houses it can be contaminated with droppings, or wet from a slipped tile that was fixed years ago. Damp and contaminated material is bagged in the loft, brought down closed and taken away. Dry sound material stays, gets straightened, and is built over rather than binned.
Two layers, and why the second one crosses. The finished depth is about 270mm, but the depth is not the clever part. The first layer of mineral wool roll goes between the joists at a friction fit, tight to the sides so there is no gap at the edge. The second is cross laid over the joists at right angles, so the timber itself disappears under the insulation. Leave the joists proud and every one is a thermal bridge, and a ceiling striped with them loses heat in lines however deep the wool between them is. Glass wool roll suits most Poole lofts, rockwool batts suit an older cut roof where the bays are all different widths, and loose fill earns its keep in the tight triangles at a hip. Approved Document L sets the U value the finished ceiling is expected to reach under Part L, and that is what shows up on an EPC and on the heating bill.
Ventilation comes before depth. This is the part cheap work skips. Insulating a ceiling properly makes everything above it colder, which moves the dew point up into the roof structure. Warm vapour from bathrooms, kitchens and drying washing then meets a cold felt and turns to water. So the insulation runs out over the wall plate and stops there. Vent trays hold it back off the felt to keep an unbroken air gap, cross ventilation moves air from one eaves to the other, and where the eaves are boxed in tight a ridge vent or vent tiles take over. Approved Document F is the standard behind all of it. Push a roll into the eaves and you have traded a warm bedroom for a wet roof and rotten rafter feet.
Everything else that lives up there. Recessed downlighters get rated covers rather than wool pushed round them. Cables are lifted clear and clipped to the joists, because buried wiring runs hot. A cold water tank and its pipework are now on the cold side, so the pipework gets lagged and the tank a jacket. The hatch is insulated on its back and draught sealed, since an unsealed trap is a hole in a ceiling you have just paid for.
Storage, and roofs with no loft in them. Boarding laid straight onto joists crushes the wool flat, so where the loft has to stay usable we build a raised floor on loft legs above the full depth and board only the platform you walk on. Plenty of houses here have a room in roof, a dormer or a sloping ceiling over the stairs, and there the work moves to rafter level: rigid PIR board cut tight between the rafters, a clear gap kept above it under the underlay, a second layer beneath the rafters and the joints taped, so the warm roof build up stays continuous and interstitial condensation has nowhere to form.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. 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.
Insulating a roof space is not development, so nothing is applied for and no permitted development right is used up, which Planning Portal guidance on insulation confirms. Building control is the part that can bite, because regulation 23 brings a whole element up to current standard once more than half of it is renovated. The Town Centre Heritage conservation area covers much of the old town, which matters only if ventilation has to be added to a roof slope people can see, and the council keeps the list. On a listed building consent covers internal work as well, and the council's listed building records are where to check. The VAT rules for energy saving materials are worth reading before you order.
Cost
What decides the price of a loft
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 Parkstone semi with a hatch on the landing, a converted town house where the trap is over a communal stairwell, and a Hamworthy bungalow with a long shallow roof are three quite different mornings. 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.
If the loft is wet
Water running off the felt, or mould on the underside
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. Poole is minutes from us, so a roof space that is running with water is normally same day or next. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
In a converted house the loft is usually one space, not yours
One home in three in Poole is a flat, and a great many of them are older houses divided up rather than purpose built blocks. That matters more in a loft than anywhere else in the building, because when a house is split into flats the roof space above it very often is not. It stays as one continuous void running over every flat on the top floor, reached through a single trap on a shared landing. Insulating the strip of ceiling above your own rooms and stopping at an invisible line does almost nothing, because the cold air is still sitting over the lot of it.
Two things follow. That void belongs to whoever holds it under the lease, normally the freeholder rather than the top floor leaseholder, so the instruction has to come from the right person and we will quote in a form an agent can put to everybody. And a continuous void is a fire separation question too: where a party wall was meant to carry on up through the roof and does not, that is worth knowing before anyone lays rolls across it. We photograph what is up there, mark on the quote where the void runs and where it stops, and price the whole ceiling rather than a slice of it.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Poole, the old town and the quay, Hamworthy, Parkstone, Broadstone, Upton and the BH15 addresses around them, with BCP Council for planning and 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.
Questions
Poole questions we get asked
How long does a loft take, and how much mess?
Half a day to a day for most houses, and the work stays above the ceiling. We put crawl boards down, bag the old material in the loft rather than carrying it loose through the house, and sweep at the end of the day. Clearing is what takes the time, not laying.
Our flat is on the top floor. Can we just get the loft done?
Only if the void above you is yours to instruct. In most converted houses it is retained under the lease and the freeholder or managing agent has to issue the order. We will still come and look, put what the roof space needs in writing, and give you something you can send them rather than a conversation you have to repeat.
There is water on the underside of the felt every morning. What now?
That is ventilation, not depth, and adding insulation on its own will make it worse. We clear the eaves, fit vent trays where the roll has been pushed in tight, look at whether the hatch and the downlighters are letting warm air up, and only then talk about how much material goes down.
Do we have to lose the loft as storage?
No. Boards fixed straight to the joists are the problem, because insulation squashed flat stops working and you have bought depth you are not getting. We raise the boarded area on loft legs so the full depth runs underneath, board the part you use, and leave the rest deep. The hatch and loft ladder get sorted at the same time.
Is 270mm really necessary, or is that a sales figure?
It is what the numbers need rather than what we would like to sell. A single old layer sitting flush with the top of the joist is roughly a third of it, and leaves the timber uncovered as a cold bridge. The second cross laid layer is what does most of the work, which is why the direction matters as much as the depth.
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Want to know what is really above your ceiling?
We will go up, measure what is there, photograph the eaves and the hatch, and put an itemised written price in front of you. The visit and the quote are free.