Loft insulation in Rockbourne
Depth over the ceiling, the roof still breathing, and an itemised written price before anything is ordered.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Two layers of mineral wool over the ceiling, the second cross laid over the joists to a finished 270mm, with the eaves held open. On the older houses in the village it is also a job that has to be reversible, which rules some methods out.
The three reasons people ring are much the same everywhere. A room that will not hold heat. A loft with a thin, uneven old layer in it and bare timber at the edges. Or damp, which in a village of old roofs is the one worth taking seriously first. Rockbourne is a small place with a very high number of old buildings in it, so a fair share of the lofts we open here belong to houses where what you do matters as much as how well you do it. We look before we quote, and both the visit and the written itemised quote are free.
The work
From the trap door to the wall plate
Getting in, and getting it out. Older cottages rarely have a convenient hatch. A small trap over a cupboard or a landing corner slows everything down, because every roll goes up through it and every bag of old material comes back down the same way. That is time before a single thing is laid, which is why access is a priced line rather than something folded into a rate.
What is already over the ceiling. Old lofts here often hold two or three generations of material, the bottom layer compressed to almost nothing. It goes patchy where it has been walked on, disappears at the edges, and is pulled back wherever a cable was run. Wet or contaminated with droppings, it is bagged and taken away. Dry and sound, it is straightened, the gaps closed, and kept as the first layer.
Material and depth over an old ceiling. Ceiling joists in an old cut roof sit at irregular centres and are usually shallow, so the first layer of mineral wool, glass wool or rockwool, is cut to fit rather than forced, and batts are often easier than a roll. The second layer is cross laid over the joists to bring the finished depth to 270mm. Loose fill suits a roof nobody can crawl in, and rigid board such as PIR or Celotex goes where headroom is genuinely short.
Keeping the roof breathing. Most old roofs here have no underlay, so they ventilate through the covering itself and that is why the timbers are still sound. We do not change that. Insulation stops at the wall plate, vent trays hold the air gap at the eaves, and cross ventilation carries on. A ridge vent goes in only where the air genuinely is not moving. Sealing an old roof up is how you get condensation, black mould and rot in timber that has lasted centuries.
The rest of it. The hatch is insulated on the back and draught sealed, which on an old ceiling closes a real vapour path. A cold water tank and its pipework get lagging once the loft is cold. Cables are lifted and clipped over rather than buried, and recessed lights need fire rated covers. Storage sits on a raised floor of loft legs and boarding above full depth, with a platform by the hatch so the loft ladder stays usable. Sloping ceilings follow the rafters, with a clear gap to the underlay and joints taped.
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.
Insulation inside a loft is not development, so there is no planning application, which Planning Portal guidance on insulation sets out. The planning authority here is New Forest District Council, not the National Park Authority, and building control sets what the work must reach through Approved Document L. Where more than half a roof element is renovated, regulation 23 brings the whole of it up to current standard. HMRC VAT Notice 708/6 covers the VAT position.
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 thatched or tiled cottage with a small trap, a farmhouse roof you can move about in, and a modern house with a trussed loft are three 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. In a village of old roofs the timbers are worth more than the heating bill, so damp up there gets looked at before anybody talks about depth. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
In a village this old, consent reaches inside the roof too
Rockbourne has its own conservation area and an unusually large number of listed entries for a village of this size, fifty two of them in and around it. The practical consequence is that the odds of your house being listed here are real rather than theoretical, and listed building consent covers the inside of a building as well as the outside. Work in the roof space of a listed cottage is worth checking with New Forest District Council before anything is ordered.
In practice, laying mineral wool over a ceiling is about the least contentious thing you can do to an old building. It touches nothing, it is reversible, and it comes straight back out if anyone ever wants it out. Spray foam under the rafters is the opposite of all three. It bonds to the underside of the covering, it makes any later repair or re-cover far harder and more expensive, and on an unfelted roof it takes away the ventilation that kept the timbers dry. We do not fit it, here or anywhere.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Rockbourne, Sandleheath, Breamore, Fordingbridge, Alderholt and the SP6 addresses around them, with New Forest District Council for planning. 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
Rockbourne questions we get asked
How long will you be in the house?
A day where you can get a ladder to the hatch. Two where the way in is a small trap, or where several old layers have to be pulled out and bagged before anything new can go down. That is settled at the visit, not once the work has started.
Do we need consent for insulation in a listed cottage?
It is worth asking before anything is ordered, because consent covers internal work as well as external. Mineral wool over a ceiling is rarely a problem, since it is reversible and touches nothing. Anything fixed to or sprayed onto the roof structure is a different conversation.
Will insulating make the roof damp?
Only where the roof gets sealed up at the same time. An old roof dries itself through the covering, so the danger here is closing the eaves rather than adding depth. Leave them open, seal the hatch, and the timbers stay as dry as they have always been.
Our roof has no felt. Should we add some?
Not as part of this. An unfelted roof ventilates itself through the covering, which is a help rather than a fault. What it does mean is that loose material drifts in the wind, so the edges get held down and the depth kept even.
Is it worth doing at all in a house this old?
Yes. Heat loss upwards is the largest single loss in a building like this, so a ceiling at full depth is the thermal improvement you feel first, and it lifts the fabric score on an EPC. A settled old layer leaves the U value nowhere near what Part L expects.
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Have the roof space looked at
Thomas comes out, checks the ventilation before the depth and puts the whole loft in writing. Both are free.