Loft insulation in Wimborne Minster

The boarded loft problem. Most lofts in Wimborne Minster are working storage. Cases, boxes, the tree, a spare bed. Whoever laid the floor screwed the boarding straight onto the joists, so the wool underneath has been compressed to a third of its thickness and is doing about a third of its job.

What is left under a Wimborne Minster floor has usually settled, gone patchy in the traffic lanes and stopped short at the edges. Lifting that floor, clearing what is under it and building the depth back is the loft job that houses like these call for, and access is one hatch, so crawl boards go down before anybody moves off it.

Getting depth back under a floor. With the boards up and the old material bagged, wool goes between the joists and a second thickness is cross laid over the top the other way, so no timber is left standing proud to carry cold into the room below. Two layers, about 270mm finished. Approved Document L sets that as the standard for a loft being renovated. Open runs take rolls of mineral wool, sold as glass wool or as rockwool depending on the maker. Batts suit the bays between trusses, loose fill goes where neither will follow, and sheep wool is there for anyone who would rather have it. The point of all of it is a lower U value over the ceiling, because that ceiling is one of the main routes for heat out of the house, and it turns up on the heating bill and on the EPC.

Then the floor goes back, higher. Loft legs stand on the joists and carry the boards clear above the finished insulation, so the raised floor gives you the storage and the depth underneath is left alone. The loft ladder is reset so it still lands on the platform. It costs a little more in materials and it is the whole difference between a loft that is insulated and one that only looks it.

The hatch. A loft hatch is a hole in a ceiling and it behaves like one. Warm damp air off the landing goes up round the edge of a bare plywood flap all day, and the draught coming back down is the one people feel on the stairs. It takes rigid board fixed to the top face and a compression seal round the rebate so it shuts onto something.

Air at the edges. In a Wimborne Minster loft the wool stops on the wall plate and never goes past it. That air gap is where the roof draws its air, and it needs it more once the ceiling is insulated, because the dew point moves up into a space that has just been made colder. Vent trays hold the gap open. Cross ventilation then does the rest, moving moist air up the slope and out under the ridge, helped by a ridge vent where one exists. Modern breathable membrane is forgiving. The bitumen felt underlay in the older streets is not. Pack the eaves and you get condensation, wet material and black mould on the timbers instead.

The things that live up there. The cold water tank is lagged and its pipework with it, since the loft is a colder place the day after than the day before. Wiring and cables come up onto the wool instead of lying underneath it. Fire rated covers go over recessed lights and downlighters. None of it is dear, and all of it is what gets left off a quote that looks cheap.

Flats and rooms in the roof. A third of the homes in Wimborne Minster are flats, many of them in older houses that were divided, and the roof space over a top floor flat usually belongs to the freeholder rather than to you. We will still survey it, and the quote is written so it can go to an agent or a management company without being done twice. Where the roof has been made into a room there is no loft floor at all. That is rafter level work: board goes between the rafters, an air path is kept open above it, another layer runs underneath, and the build up is closed with taped vapour control. Multi-foil earns its place only where a sloping ceiling or a dormer cheek is too shallow for anything else.

No Wimborne Minster loft is priced per square metre. The open floor is quick. The edges and awkward corners take the time. The hatch and the space. A small hatch over a stairwell in a terrace, a crawl space under a low pitch, and a loft full of boarding that has to come up all add time before any insulation goes down. A wide hatch over a landing in a modern semi makes it easy.

Clearing out. Old compressed insulation, and years of stored boxes, have to be moved, bagged and taken away first.

How the roof is built. Joists in an old roof run at uneven centres, so the first layer is cut to fit. A trussed roof on a newer estate house is full of bracing to work round.

Ventilation and the cold side. The eaves must stay clear, or the underside of the roof gets wet. Pipes and tanks in the loft need lagging once the space above the insulation turns colder, and downlighters need covers. Approved Document L sets the depth to reach.

If you store things up there. Raising boards on legs above the insulation keeps its full depth, and it is priced separately.

Ask any other quote what depth is going in and in how many layers, whether the old material is being taken out, and whether the eaves are kept clear.

We are 8.1 miles away in Boscombe. We insulate lofts in Wimborne Minster, Colehill, Pamphill, Furzehill and the nearby BH21 streets, and Dorset Council decides planning and building control matters there. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, which is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, is the firm you would be dealing with. Before you book a visit in Wimborne Minster, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

The business is Thomas Hannen's, and he goes up into your loft to see it before he prices anything. Checkatrade lists a verified 10 out of 10 from one of our customers. There is no charge for the survey visit, or for the written quote with its separate lines.

Most repairs in Wimborne Minster 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.