Loft insulation in Ridge

Reading what is there. Old material in a Ridge loft tells you a lot. It settles and compresses, goes patchy in the middle and missing at the edges, and takes on gaps where cables and pipework were pulled through. If the underside is grey and dry it has simply aged, and the new layer goes over it.

If it is heavy, damp, black underneath or contaminated with droppings, it comes out, is bagged at the hatch and leaves with us, and the reason it is wet gets dealt with before anything replaces it.

What we lay. Mineral wool for most lofts in Ridge, as glass wool rolls mostly, rockwool batts where the bay wants filling tight. Loose fill, blown or poured, where the joists are at awkward centres or the space is too tight to work a roll into. Sheep wool if you would rather. Where headroom has run out, PIR rigid board cut tight and taped at the joints, and a multi-foil quilt for the shallowest last stretch.

Two layers, and the second one crossways. One layer laid flush between the joists is where most lofts stop, and it leaves every timber conducting heat straight through the ceiling. The first layer goes between the joists and the second is cross laid over the joists, turned across the run of the first. Around 270mm all in is what a Part L U value comes to once it is laid rather than calculated, and there should be no joist tops showing when it is finished.

The air path, which comes first here. Insulation is taken to the wall plate and left and the eaves stay open, vent trays are fitted so the air gap cannot be choked so cross ventilation still gets from one eaves to the other. Block them and the vapour rising out of the house condenses on the cold underside of the covering instead. Insulating moves the dew point, interstitial condensation forms inside the layer where nobody can see it, and the result is wet material and black mould running along the rafters. Approved Document F carries the ventilation standard, A breathable membrane asks for a different detail and nothing more, and where the eaves cannot be opened a ridge vent often can be.

Services, hatch and rafter level. Covers rated for the purpose go over the recessed lights, and cables are lifted out and clipped over the layer, because wiring buried in insulation runs hot. A cold water tank and its pipework sit in colder air once the ceiling is done and want lagging. The hatch is insulated where nobody sees it and sealed round the edge, since an unsealed hatch pumps warm damp air straight up. Where there is no loft floor, a room in roof puts the insulation at rafter level in a warm roof, sloping ceiling and dormer cheeks carried through as one layer.

No Ridge loft is priced per square metre. The floor area is quick; the awkward edges take the time. The hatch and the space. A hatch on a landing you can put a ladder under is one job. A tiny hatch over a stairwell, a low roof you can only crawl through, or boarding that has to come up and go back adds hours before any material is laid.

What is up there now. Old, compressed or damp material has to come out, be bagged and be taken away. A loft full of stored boxes has to be emptied and put back.

The eaves on the weather side. On a south west slope here, wind drives rain and fine snow into the eaves. Insulation has to stop short of the wall plate and the vents have to stay clear, so eaves trays or baffles go in on that side. Without them you swap a cold bedroom for wet timbers.

The cold side. Pipes and the tank end up in a colder loft once it is insulated, so they get lagged. Downlighters are boxed over. Approved Document L sets the depth the work should reach.

Before you choose, ask what depth is going down and in how many layers, whether the old material is removed, and whether the eaves, hatch and pipes are included.

Sitting this low, with water on three sides and heath beyond it, the air here carries more moisture for more of the year than it does a few miles inland. That does nothing to a loft on its own. What it does is shorten the margin.

A roof space that only just ventilates will cope in a dry winter and will not cope in a wet one, and the first you know about it is droplets running off the underside of the felt onto insulation that then stays damp for months.

So on these houses the ventilation is not a detail at the end of the quote, it is the first item on it. We check that the eaves are genuinely open on both sides rather than on one, fit vent trays so the new depth cannot choke them, and seal the routes warm damp air uses to get up there in the first place: the hatch, the light fittings, the pipe and cable holes and the top of the stud walls. Only then does the depth go down. Where a roof simply cannot breathe at the eaves, a ridge vent is usually the honest answer, and we would rather price that than lay a thick layer over a problem.

We lay loft insulation in Ridge, Stoborough, Wareham, Sandford, Arne and Holton Heath, and the BH20 addresses between them. Ridge is 11.9 miles from Wolverton Road, Boscombe, where our base is, and Dorset Council is the authority.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, has the company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns it and goes up your loft ladder himself to price the job. A Checkatrade customer, verified, rated us 10 out of 10. We do not charge for the visit, or for the itemised quote. Before you book a visit in Ridge, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Ridge 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.