Loft insulation in Sixpenny Handley
Full depth laid across the joists, and the ventilation sorted at the eaves rather than through a roof everybody can see, across Sixpenny Handley and SP5.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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A loft goes wrong through too little depth or too little air. In Sixpenny Handley the fix is a top-up to about 270mm of mineral wool with the eaves kept open, storage lifted onto a raised deck and the tank lagged against frost. Walls and floors are on our Sixpenny Handley insulation page.
When to call
A cold house, and a loft that has started sweating
The cold call is the usual one in Sixpenny Handley. Heating that runs all day, rooms above that never quite catch up, and a layer of wool up there that has settled thin, gone patchy and stopped short of the walls long before it reaches them.
The wet call is the one that has to come first. Material that is damp to the touch, dark staining spreading along the timbers, or water beading on the felt above your head on a cold morning. Depth added to a roof in that state only makes the space colder and the damp worse, so we look at where the moisture is going before anything is laid.
Either way the site visit is done from inside the Sixpenny Handley roof rather than from the landing. You get photographs and a written quote pricing the clear out, the disposal, the eaves trays, the depth and the hatch as separate lines, and nothing to pay for either the visit or the quote.
The day itself
What a day up in the roof actually looks like
The morning in a Sixpenny Handley loft goes on getting in and getting the old work out. Access is a single hatch, the ladder is set and footed properly because it is work at height from the first rung, and crawl boards go down before anybody puts weight on a ceiling that may be lath and plaster.
Then whatever is in the Sixpenny Handley loft is judged. Wool that has settled to half its thickness, gone patchy round old wiring, been compressed under boards, gone missing at the wall or been contaminated with droppings is rolled, bagged at the hatch and carried down to the van. It does not get covered over, because a poor layer sealed under a good one is exactly where interstitial damp collects.
Before any new material goes down in a Sixpenny Handley loft, the edges are sorted. Vent trays clip in between the rafters at the wall plate to hold the air gap open, so cross ventilation can start at the bottom of the slope and finish under the ridge, where a ridge vent gives it an exit. Behind the tiles, a breathable membrane will pass a little moisture. Bitumen felt underlay passes none, which is why on the older houses up here the eaves do all the work. Insulating a ceiling takes the dew point up into the roof space, and eaves that get packed repay you with condensation, wet material and black mould on the timbers.
The middle of the day is depth. Wool between the joists first, then a layer cross laid over them so the joists are covered rather than left standing in the cold, and the two finishing at about 270mm. That is what Approved Document L expects of a loft being renovated. Rolls of mineral wool, glass wool or rockwool, cover the open ground. Batts go into the bays that truss bracing makes. Loose fill is what reaches a shallow pitch, and sheep wool suits anyone who would rather keep mineral fibre out of the house. The number it all comes down to is the U value over your ceiling, one of the main routes for heat out of a house, and you see the difference on the heating bill before an EPC ever catches up.
The last hour is everything else in the Sixpenny Handley loft. The cold water tank gets lagging, and so does its pipework, because the loft is colder tonight than it was this morning. Wiring and cables come up onto the insulation rather than sitting buried under it. Fire rated covers go over recessed lights and downlighters. The boarding is rebuilt on legs so full depth runs on underneath it, the loft ladder is reset to the platform, and the hatch takes rigid board and a seal round the rebate.
Not every Sixpenny Handley roof is a floor job. Where a room has been built into it there is nothing to lay on, so the work goes in at rafter level. PIR or Celotex is cut to the rafter bays, an air path is kept running above it, a layer is added beneath the rafters, and vapour control is taped across the room side. Where a sloping ceiling or a dormer cheek has run out of depth, multi-foil quilt is what fits. Where the covering is due to come off anyway, a warm roof over the deck does the job better than anything worked from inside.
There are things we would talk you out of, and they are worth saying. Do not board over a loft without lifting the deck onto legs first, because the boards will flatten whatever is underneath and you will pay for depth you never get. Do not stuff the eaves to stop a draught, because the draught is the roof breathing. And do not add depth to a loft that is already wet. Fix why it is wet, then insulate it, and it will still be dry in twenty years.
How it runs
Topping up a loft: survey, clear-out and new depth
You ring, and Thomas Hannen comes up from Boscombe to survey the loft. He sticks a rule into what is there to see how deep it is, feels whether it is dry, checks if the roof is trussed, and makes sure air can move at the eaves. He also notes the tank, the pipes and any downlighters in the ceiling below, because each needs dealing with.
The written quote takes it item by item: the survey, getting the old stuff out and bagged, new mineral wool to a stated depth, eaves ventilation, an insulated and draughtproofed hatch, pipe lagging, and waste. Dust sheets go down from the front door to the hatch, and old material leaves with us. If damp timber or mould shows on the underside of the roof once we are up there, you see it in a photo, with the price, before anything else.
A loft floor is inside the house, so it is not development and needs no permission; Planning Portal guidance on insulation says as much. Building control only gets involved if the roof itself is renovated, when regulation 23 brings the whole roof up to the current standard. There is no conservation area over the village, and the few listed buildings are a matter for Dorset Council.
Cost
The hatch, the eaves and the old stuff: loft pricing
A loft is not priced by its floor area. The awkward parts round the edges take the time. Getting up there. A hatch on a landing with room for a ladder is easy. A hatch over the stairwell, a crawl space too low to kneel up in, or a boarded floor that has to be lifted and put back all add hours before any insulation goes in.
Clearing out. Old, thin or damp insulation has to be bagged and taken away first. So does anything you have stored up there, unless you clear it beforehand.
The joists. A simple run of joists is quick to lay across. A trussed roof full of bracing timbers means cutting and fitting round every one.
The edges. The eaves must stay clear for ventilation, or the roof timbers get damp. Getting the full depth into the corners and round the hatch, and keeping insulation away from downlighters, is where most of the labour goes. Approved Document L sets what the finished work should reach.
Ask other quotes what depth they are laying, in how many layers, whether old material comes out, and whether the hatch and pipes are included.
If the loft is wet
A wet loft, drips on the felt or mould on the timbers
Droplets on the underside of the felt, black mould on the roof timbers or insulation that feels damp all mean warm, wet air is getting into a loft that cannot breathe. That needs looking at before winter, because the timbers take the damage.
Keep the hatch closed, run extractor fans in the bathroom and kitchen, and do not pile more insulation in, as that can make it worse. On the first visit we find where the damp air is getting in and what is blocking the ventilation. Booked work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. When you call, tell us if the loft is actually wet. Phone instead of using the form, and if we miss you, we call back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
On the Chase, what shows gets looked at, and vents show
Sixpenny Handley sits in the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, where anything visible on a building attracts more design scrutiny than it would elsewhere. Insulation is never visible, so nothing about a loft floor is touched by that. Ventilation can be, which turns this into a practical question rather than a planning one.
When a loft cannot breathe, the quick fix a lot of trades reach for is tile vents dotted across the slope, and on an exposed downland roof those read from a long way off. There are better answers and they start at the eaves. Over fascia vents sit behind the gutter and cannot be seen from the ground. Lap vents work through the underlay at the eaves without lifting a tile. Soffit vents go into a board nobody ever looks at. A ridge vent is the one we come to last, because it changes the line of the roof against the sky. We work down that list rather than reaching for the drill, and if a roof genuinely needs something on the slope we will say so, so you can decide with your eyes open.
Who you are dealing with
Who insulates lofts in Sixpenny Handley
Sixpenny Handley lies 17.1 miles from Boscombe, where our base is, and we insulate lofts in the village and in Pentridge, Cranborne, Tollard Royal and Woodyates. Dorset Council deals with planning and building control, apart from Tollard Royal, which is over the county line and comes under Wiltshire Council. The person who climbs into your loft and prices the work is Thomas Hannen.
He owns Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, which is on the register for England and Wales as company number 15471719. A verified customer gave the firm 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The survey visit is free, and you get the quote in writing with every item on it, also free. Before you book a visit in Sixpenny Handley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Sixpenny Handley?
Most repairs in Sixpenny Handley 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.
| Question | In Sixpenny Handley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Sixpenny Handley. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Sixpenny Handley, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Sixpenny Handley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about loft insulation in Sixpenny Handley
Which comes first, the depth or the ventilation?
The ventilation, always. Depth laid over a roof that cannot clear its own moisture makes the space colder and the damp worse, so the eaves and the vent trays are dealt with before the wool goes down.
How deep should it finish?
About 270mm in two layers, the second crossing the joists so no timber is left proud. Stop at one layer, level with the top of the timber, and every joist goes on carrying cold into the room below.
Do I need permission for it?
None: nothing under the tiles counts as development, so no application arises and none of your permitted development is spent. Where a loft is stripped out and redone, not added to, the regulations decide the depth, which we put on the quote.
How long does it take?
Most lofts take one day. A clear out, a floor that has to come up, or work at rafter level will each push it further, and that is on the quote before we start.
Nearby, and next door
Loft insulation near Sixpenny Handley
Nearby places we also cover for loft insulation, with straight-line distances from Sixpenny Handley, and the other trades we offer in Sixpenny Handley itself.
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Our other trades in Sixpenny Handley
Loft insulation guides
Part L: do you have to insulate when you re-roof? Loft condensation or a roof leak: how to tell PIR board vs mineral wool: which insulation?Everything we do in Verwood Loft insulation, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a price for your Sixpenny Handley loft
Tell us the address and what you have seen up there. We will survey the loft properly and put an itemised price in writing. No charge, no obligation.