Wall insulation in Bransgore, cottage walls and estate walls
Nearly a fifth of the village predates 1919 and cannot be filled at all, while half of it has an ordinary cavity, and they sit side by side.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Bransgore is two villages in one as far as walls go. Getting on for a fifth of it predates 1919 and those cottages are solid brick, which cannot be filled with anything at all. Half of the rest went up between the war and the early 1980s with an ordinary cavity in it. The two need opposite answers, and they sit on the same lanes.
So the calls split the same way. A cottage with a cold front room, damp showing in the corners and a wall that feels wet to the back of your hand in February. And a 1970s detached house where the cavity was filled at some point and one elevation has started blowing damp patches after westerly weather.
We do not guess from the outside, because render and paint hide everything. One small hole and a borescope tells us whether there is a cavity, how wide it is and what is in it. On a solid wall we measure the thickness and look at the plaster and the joist ends. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free.
The work
One village, two kinds of wall, two different jobs
Solid brick, and why nothing goes in it. A nine inch solid wall has no gap in it. It handles rain by soaking some up and letting it evaporate again, so anything you fix to it has to leave that alone. Seal a face of it and the moisture stops inside the build up and condenses there, which is interstitial condensation and it goes at the joist ends first.
Internal wall insulation, IWI, on a cottage. Insulated plasterboard bonded to the masonry, or a batten and stud frame filled with mineral wool and boarded. On old brick we lean towards a breathable build up, wood fibre and a lime skim, rather than a foil faced PIR such as Celotex or Kingspan, because the vapour tight board moves the dew point back into the masonry. Where a vapour control layer is used it is taped and sealed, per BS 8000-8.
External wall insulation, EWI. Boards fixed outside, a render carrier and a render finish. It keeps the room size, warms the masonry through and deals with the joist ends in one pass. On a modern house it is a straight choice; on a period cottage in the middle of the village it changes the frontage completely, so it is the option to settle first rather than last.
Cavity walls on the estates. Where the borescope shows a cavity that is wide enough, clear of mortar snots and dry, it is drilled on a pattern and filled in a day. Bonded polystyrene bead handles the exposed south west facing elevations here better, because it does not wick water across. Blown mineral wool still does a sound job in a clean sheltered cavity.
Fill that has failed. Wool blown in decades ago slumps, leaving a cold band under the eaves and black mould inside on that line. A wet cavity, where fill has bridged the gap, shows as penetrating damp that follows the weather rather than the seasons. Both start with extraction, drilling out and vacuuming the old material, not with adding more.
The junctions. Reveals at each window and door, the threshold, the floor junction, the eaves and the joist ends. A cold bridge, or thermal bridge, left at any of those collects condensation whatever the u value of the wall beside it. Reveals take a thin high performance board or aerogel where the frame leaves barely 40mm, and a party wall gets a cavity barrier.
Ventilation and draughts. Any of this raises the airtightness of the house, and the moisture inside needs a route out. Trickle vents, a working extract fan and air bricks left clear are part of the work, and Approved Document F sets what is expected. Sealing draughts alongside is what turns a better u value into a room that feels different and what shifts an EPC.
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 and any borescope check, the system and its thickness, making good around windows and doors, ventilation works, 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.
Bransgore is under New Forest District Council, outside the National Park boundary. Cavity fill and internal lining are building control matters rather than planning ones. External wall insulation is different because it alters the outside of the building, and with thirteen listed entries in the parish that is worth checking early; Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out where permission bites. Where an existing wall is upgraded, regulation 23 sets what it has to reach under Part L.
Cost
What decides the price of a wall insulation job
No rate per square metre, because the wall area is the easy part; what happens at every window, door and floor junction is not.
Getting to it. A brick cottage on the main road, a detached house on one of the 1970s closes and a bungalow on a wide plot are three different jobs before a hole is drilled. Cavity fill is drilled from outside and a bungalow comes off a tower where a three storey gable wants a scaffold. Internal lining is worked room by room from inside, so it is your rooms rather than a platform that gets disrupted. The work at height rules still set the platform.
Which wall you actually have. A cavity that is clear and dry can be filled in a day. A solid wall cannot be filled at all, and has to be lined inside or insulated outside, which is a different job at a different price. A borescope through one drilled hole settles it, and no honest quote is written before that.
The junctions, not the field of the wall. Reveals at windows and doors, the floor junction, the eaves and any party wall are where heat escapes and where condensation shows up if the detailing is wrong. That work is slow, it is most of the labour, and it is the first thing a cheap quote leaves out.
Comparing quotes? Ask whether the wall has actually been checked with a borescope or just assumed, what system and what thickness is specified, how the reveals and floor junction are being detailed, whether ventilation is being addressed, and who makes good the plaster and decoration afterwards. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.
If damp has appeared
Damp or mould after a wall was insulated
Ring rather than use the form. Damp patches or black mould appearing on an outside wall after cavity fill or internal lining usually means water is tracking across the cavity, or warm air is reaching a cold surface at a junction. We look before we take anything out, because the fix depends on which of those it is. Bransgore is under eight miles from us and we are across this side most weeks, so an address here is normally looked at quickly. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Why your neighbour's cavity fill tells you nothing
On a lane here you can have a Victorian brick cottage, a pair of inter-war semis and a 1970s detached house within a hundred yards of each other. They look like the same kind of house from the road once they have been painted or rendered, and they are not the same at all. One has no cavity, one has a narrow cavity that may be full of mortar droppings, and one has a clean 50mm gap that would take bead tomorrow.
That is why the advice that travels around a village is so unreliable here. Somebody has their cavity filled, tells the neighbours it was the best thing they ever did, and the neighbour with the solid wall books the same job. At best the surveyor turns up and says no. At worst somebody less careful drills it anyway and the owner has bought a damp problem instead of a warm room. One hole and a borescope on your own wall is the only thing that settles it, and it takes minutes.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Bransgore, Thorney Hill Road, Neacroft and the Sopley side, broadly BH23, under New Forest District Council. 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
Bransgore questions we get asked
My neighbour had their cavity filled. Can I have the same?
Not by the age and not from the pavement, because render and paint hide the brickwork. A borescope through one small hole shows the cavity, its width and what is in it, and it takes a few minutes.
Can an old Bransgore cottage have its walls insulated at all?
Yes, but from the inside or the outside rather than into the middle. On solid brick we would normally line inside with a breathable build up so the wall can still dry out the way it always has.
What does the filling day actually involve?
How long it takes is a day on a normal house with clear access, drilled and filled from outside with the holes made good in matching mortar. Internal lining is much slower, room by room.
Is bead better than the old blown wool?
On an exposed elevation, yes. Bonded bead does not carry water across the cavity and it holds its position instead of settling. In a sheltered clean cavity wool is still perfectly sound.
Will insulating the walls fix the damp in my cottage?
Only if the damp is condensation, which it often is. If water is coming through the wall or up from the ground, lining over it hides it and makes it worse, so we find out which it is first.
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Find out which wall you have before anybody quotes
Thomas comes out, reads the wall with a borescope or measures the solid one, and prices the work in writing. The visit and the quote are free.