Wall insulation in Fordingbridge
Which street you live on decides the job here: the old town has walls that cannot be filled and the estates behind it have cavities that usually can.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
There are two quite different wall insulation jobs in this town. On the old streets the houses have solid walls, often fronting the pavement with nothing outside them, so the work has to happen indoors. On the seventies and eighties estates the houses have proper cavities, and where the borescope shows one clear and dry it is a day's work.
The calls reflect that. A cold front room in an old house where the wall is thick and the heating never quite wins. A modern house with one wall that feels different from the others. And people who have been quoted for a cavity fill on a building that has no cavity at all.
The visit sorts out which you are. Construction and thickness, one drilled hole and a borescope where a cavity is possible, the state of the pointing or the render, how much depth there is at the window reveals, and where the floor joists sit. Then a written itemised quote with the survey, the system, the junctions and the ventilation on separate lines. Both the visit and the quote are free.
Around the town
Old streets, newer estates, and what suits each
Cavity fill on the estates. Bonded polystyrene bead blown through a drilled pattern, or blown mineral wool where the wall is sheltered and the outer leaf sound. The cavity has to be clear, dry and wide enough. Where it is bridged with mortar, wet, or holding a fill that has failed and slumped, we say so instead of blowing more in. Holes made good in a matched mortar.
Solid walls on the old streets. A nine inch brick wall, or a rendered rubble one, has nothing in it to inject, however similar it looks to a brick and block house on the next road. The choice is internal wall insulation or external wall insulation.
Why external is usually out in the old town. A house fronting the pavement has no ground outside it to build on, and adding a hundred millimetres to a street elevation is not something you can do without permission or without affecting the neighbours. Behind the frontage, on a rear elevation or a gable with space around it, external wall insulation with a render carrier and mesh becomes a proper option again.
Internal wall insulation. Wood fibre bedded in lime and finished in lime plaster on an old soft or damp wall, so it stays breathable and vapour can pass through rather than gathering as interstitial condensation. Insulated plasterboard, or PIR board such as Celotex or Kingspan on battens or a timber stud, where the wall is dry and hard enough to take a sealed face.
Flats and shared buildings. A good share of the town's homes are flats, many of them in converted houses. Where the wall is part of the shared structure the freeholder or the managing agent has to instruct the work, and we will tell you that at the visit rather than after the quote.
The junctions. Reveals, the threshold, the floor junction, the eaves, the joist ends and the party wall in a terrace. A shallow reveal takes a thin aerogel board. Anything missed is a cold bridge, and a thermal bridge is where the dew point lands and black mould appears.
Ventilation. Trickle vents, a working extract in the kitchen and bathroom, and air bricks kept clear, which is what Approved Document F expects. Tightening the fabric without giving the moisture a route out is how a draughty room becomes a damp one.
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.
New Forest District Council is the planning authority. Lining a wall on the inside is not development and needs no permission, which the Planning Portal confirms, while external wall insulation changes the outer face and the external walls guidance is the place to start. The town carries 49 listed entries, the road bridge over the Avon among them, and on a listed building consent covers internal work as well. Building control comes in under regulation 23 once a thermal element is renovated, and Part L sets the U value.
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 solid walled house on the old street, a seventies semi on the estates and a converted flat in a larger building are three different jobs before anything 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. Tell us roughly when the house was built when you ring, because in this town that alone narrows down what the fault is likely to be. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Which half of the town you live in
Roughly a fifth of the homes here predate 1919 and the biggest single block of building came in the seventies and early eighties. Those two groups are not variations on the same job. They are opposites. One has a wall you cannot fill and no room outside to build on. The other has a wall you probably can fill, from the outside, in a day.
That matters when you are comparing quotes, because the two are priced nothing like each other and a salesman who has not looked at the wall will assume you are the cheap one. If somebody offers you a cavity fill on a house built before the First World War without putting a camera in the wall first, they are guessing, and the guess is wrong more often than not.
It also changes the order of the work. On the estates the wall is often the first thing worth doing, because it is quick and heat loss through it is a large share of the total. In the old town the wall is usually the last thing, after the draughts, the ventilation and any repair to the pointing or the render, because a lining put on an untreated wall creates problems rather than solving them. We will tell you which of those you are looking at on the first visit.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Fordingbridge, Sandleheath, Godshill and the villages up the Avon valley, broadly SP6, 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
Fordingbridge questions we get asked
How do I know if my house is old enough to have no cavity?
Wall thickness and the brick bond are the usual clues, and a camera through one small hole settles it for certain. That check is part of the free visit.
My house fronts the pavement. Is external insulation possible?
Not on that elevation in practice. It can still be worth doing on a rear wall or a gable where there is space, with the front lined from inside instead.
I live in a converted flat. Who arranges the work?
If the wall is part of the shared structure, the freeholder or the managing agent instructs it. We are used to quoting in a form that can be put in front of them.
Is the wall the first thing I should spend money on?
On the newer estates, often yes. In an old house the draughts, the ventilation and any repair to the outside usually come first, and the wall afterwards.
What should I ask another quote for the same job?
Whether anyone has actually looked inside the wall, what thickness is specified, how the reveals and the floor junction are detailed, and who makes good the plaster afterwards.
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Find out which of the two jobs your house is
Thomas comes out, checks what the wall is built of and prices the fill or the lining, the junctions and the ventilation in writing. Both are free.