Loft insulation in Wareham

In a terrace or a pair of semis the first look is sideways, at the party wall. It ought to carry on up to the underside of the roof and be closed off there. In older houses it frequently stops at ceiling level, leaving one continuous roof space running over several homes, and that has to be dealt with before depth is added, since insulation laid across an open party wall simply hides it. Where closing it is the right answer we say so and price it as its own line.

Then what is already down. Hardly any of these lofts are bare and hardly any are near where they ought to be. The layer sinks, flattens along the route people walk to the tank, thins across the middle and disappears where the roof drops away, with a gap wherever a cable or a pipe comes through. Sound and dry, we leave it and build on it. Wet, blackened underneath or full of droppings, it is bagged and carted off, priced on a line of its own.

Depth arrives in two runs. Most of these houses stopped at one, sitting level with the joists, which leaves every timber running heat out through the ceiling. So one run goes in between the joists and a second goes over the top of them, turned square to the first. About 270mm together is what a modern Part L u value works out at once you express it as a depth. Mineral wool covers most jobs, either glass wool rolls or the denser rockwool batt. Where joists sit at odd centres, or the roof is too tight to open a roll out in, loose fill poured or blown does better. Rigid PIR board once the headroom has gone, multi-foil quilt in the shallowest corners, and sheep wool if you would rather.

At the edge the layer goes out over the wall plate and stops, with vent trays holding the gap open above it so air still crosses the top of the new depth. Push wool into the eaves and the vapour that used to leave has nothing but cold felt to land on. Interstitial condensation then forms inside the layer, out of anybody's sight, and by February you have wet material and black mould along the rafter feet. Approved Document F is the standard, and a breathable membrane changes the detail at the edge rather than the principle behind it.

Then the fittings. Recessed lights want a rated hood, never wool over the top of the fitting. Cables get lifted and re-clipped above the new depth, since cable buried in wool runs warm. A cold water tank and the pipework round it are colder than they have ever been and take lagging, with the patch under the tank deliberately left thin. The hatch takes a board on its back and a proper seal, and storage goes back on loft legs rather than flat on the joists. Where the roof is already a room it all moves up to rafter level and becomes a warm roof, with the sloping ceilings and the dormer cheeks carried through in the same layer.

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 town house with a hatch over a stairwell, a post-war semi with a landing hatch, and a bungalow with a wide shallow roof make three different mornings. The way in is work at height before anything else. 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.

The walled town carries a great many listed entries, well over a hundred of them, and the houses that come with that are tall, narrow and short of landing. The loft is often reached through a small square hatch directly over a stairwell, with nowhere flat to stand a ladder and nowhere to swing a roll of anything. That is not a reason to leave the loft alone. It is a reason to work out the access before the quote rather than on the morning.

Sometimes it means a scaffold tower inside the stairwell instead of a ladder. Sometimes it means cutting the material downstairs and passing it up in short lengths, or using loose fill where a roll simply will not turn the corner. What it does not mean is quietly enlarging the hatch: on a listed building that is internal work needing consent, and even where it is not, a hatch through an old lath and plaster ceiling is a job in its own right. We will set out on the quote how we intend to get up there, because on these houses that is where the hours are, not in the laying.

We cover Wareham, Stoborough, Ridge, Sandford, Holton Heath and Wool, and the BH20 addresses around them, with Dorset Council on 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.