Loft insulation in Ringwood

The top-up. The usual find is a single thickness of mineral wool between the joists, settled and level with the timber, which leaves every joist as a cold bridge through the ceiling. Sound material stays, gaps are filled, and a fresh unbacked roll is cross laid over the joists at right angles. Two layers laid across each other take the finished depth to about 270mm, the sort of figure a current U value expects.

Clearing. Wool that is wet, compressed under boarding, patchy or contaminated by droppings is bagged in the loft and carried out. Old loose fill goes the same way, particularly where it has drifted into the eaves and closed off the air path. It is a separate line on the quote, and it is usually the reason two prices for the same loft look different.

The eaves. Material runs out over the wall plate and stops there, with a vent tray in each rafter bay holding the air gap open so cross ventilation can still cross the space. Filling the eaves is the single most common fault we find, and it does not show up until the following winter, as condensation on the underside of the felt and mould spreading over the timbers. A breathable membrane copes better than old bitumen felt, but the edge is handled the same way on both.

Communal roof voids. Over flats the roof space often runs the length of a building rather than stopping at your ceiling, and it is reached from a shared landing. The work is the same, but it is planned around access to the whole void, fire stopping between dwellings is left alone rather than disturbed, and everything is set out so one instruction covers the block. In a purpose built block with a flat roof and no void at all, there is nothing to insulate from inside and the moment to do it is when the covering is next renewed.

Services, storage and roof rooms. Recessed lights get fire rated covers, cable and wiring are lifted and clipped above the new layer, and the tank and its pipework are lagged with a lid fitted. Boarding for storage goes onto loft legs as a raised floor with a platform at the loft ladder, and the hatch gets an insulated board and a draught seal. Where there is a room in the roof, a dormer or a sloping ceiling, it becomes rafter level work: rigid board between the rafters with the air gap open above, PIR beneath, taped so the vapour control is continuous.

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 bungalow with a landing hatch and a fitted ladder, a terraced house with a small trap over the stairs, and a top floor flat whose roof void opens off a communal landing are three quite different jobs before any material is laid. 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.

Close to three in ten homes in Ringwood are flats or maisonettes, and that changes the first question from what depth to lay to who is allowed to order the work. A hatch inside your own hallway does not mean the space above it is part of your flat. In most leases the roof void is retained by the freeholder, which is why the instruction has to come from them or from the managing agent, and why a well meant top floor top-up can cause an argument later.

The practical route is short. Check what your lease actually demises, and if the void is not yours, get the fault or the cold in writing to the agent and let us quote them direct. Where the landlord recovers the cost through the service charge and the amount passed to each leaseholder goes past a threshold, they have to consult formally under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 before committing, so the earlier it is raised the better. We are happy to survey and price it either way, and we would rather sort out who is instructing us before we book a day than after.

We cover Ringwood, Poulner, Ashley Heath, St Leonards, Burley and the BH24 addresses around them, with New Forest District 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.