Wall insulation in Hangersley
Detached houses here were built one at a time, so every elevation gets measured and opened before anybody prices it, across Hangersley, Poulner and BH24.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Four in ten homes around Hangersley are detached, a lot of them built one at a time on their own plot, and that means no two walls on the same lane are necessarily the same construction. There is no typical house here to quote from, so we survey each elevation on its own before anybody puts a price on a wall.
The calls are usually a cold room in a house nobody has ever fully surveyed, damp appearing on an inside wall after driven rain, and owners who have been quoted for a whole house fill and want to know whether that even makes sense on their building.
We measure the wall thickness at each elevation, borescope anything that could be a cavity, and write it up as a free itemised quote in which every wall is a separate line. If two walls need two different answers, you will see that on the page.
The work
Every elevation surveyed on its own
Working out the construction, wall by wall. Thickness at a reveal, the brick bond, and a borescope through one drilled hole wherever a cavity is possible. A one off house extended twice over fifty years can have nine inch solid brick on the original, brick and block cavity on one addition and a timber frame with a brick skin on another. Each of those wants a different answer and only one of them can be filled at all.
Timber frame, which catches people out. A timber frame house with a brick outer skin looks exactly like a cavity wall from the pavement, and the gap behind the brickwork is a ventilated drainage cavity that must stay clear. Filling it is a serious mistake. The camera shows the breather membrane and the studs straight away, which is why we never quote from the outside.
Cavity fill where the wall takes it. Clear and dry masonry cavity, and it takes bonded polystyrene bead or blown mineral wool, drilled on a pattern, injected under control, eaves and every reveal closed off first and the holes made good. It cuts the heat loss through that wall sharply and the payback is short. A fill is normally covered by an independent scheme run separately from the installer.
Failed and slumped fill. Older fills settle. The camera finds an empty band at the top of the wall and a compacted mass below, or fibre that has gone wet on the weather side. It is extracted with a vacuum through a drilled pattern, bagged and taken away, then refilled in bead once the wall is dry.
Solid walls, and internal lining. Insulated plasterboard fixed back to the masonry, or a stud and batten frame with mineral wool or PIR board such as Celotex or Kingspan between it. On old brick we favour a breathable build up so the wall can still dry inwards. Where a reveal or a threshold has no room to give, an aerogel backed board gets a useful U value into 20 or 30mm.
External wall insulation. Boards, a render carrier and a thin coat finish outside, which loses no room and cures cold bridging in one go. On a detached house away from the road it is often the strongest option on paper, and the constraint here is design scrutiny rather than the building.
Junctions and vapour. Reveals returned, the floor junction carried down, joist ends thought about, the eaves closed and a vapour control layer taped continuously so the dew point cannot end up in the build up as interstitial condensation. Where an extension meets the original house there is a thermal bridge at the change of construction, and the lining is carried past it rather than stopped at it.
Ventilation. Extract in the kitchen and bathroom, trickle vents in the windows and air bricks kept clear. Approved Document F sets what it has to do once airtightness improves.
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.
Hangersley falls to the New Forest National Park Authority, and the Western Escarpment conservation area covers this side of Ringwood, which the the National Park heritage pages explain. Appearance is controlled inside it, so external wall insulation is a planning application rather than a free choice, as the Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out, and the National Park property map will tell you whether an address is in. Internal lining needs no permission at all under the Planning Portal page on insulation. Building control still applies through regulation 23.
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 one off detached built in the 1960s, a Victorian brick house on the lane and a timber frame from the 1980s are three entirely different jobs. 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. Hangersley is about eleven miles from us and we are around Ringwood most weeks. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
There is no standard house here to quote from
Estate housing is easy to price because one house tells you about forty. Hangersley is the opposite: over four in ten homes are detached and a good many of them were built individually, on their own plot, by whoever the owner used at the time. Two neighbours can have been built thirty years apart to entirely different specifications.
That is a problem for the way cavity insulation is normally sold, because most of the industry prices from a database and a street view photograph. Neither can tell a solid wall from a cavity wall, and neither can spot a timber frame behind a brick skin, which is the one construction where filling the gap does real harm. We have surveyed houses on this side of Ringwood where three elevations were fillable and the fourth, a later garden room, was timber framed and had to be left alone.
So the survey is longer here than it is on an estate, and the quote is longer too. Every elevation is measured, opened where there is any doubt, and priced separately, with the walls worth doing first listed first. When you compare quotes, the question to ask is simple: how many holes did they drill, and what did they find in each one. If the answer is none, the quote is a guess dressed as a specification.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Hangersley, Poulner, Ringwood, Crow and the BH24 addresses around them, with the New Forest National Park Authority for planning. 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
Hangersley questions we get asked
Can a timber frame house have cavity insulation?
No. The gap behind the brick skin is a ventilated drainage cavity and it has to stay clear. Filling it traps moisture against the frame, and a borescope identifies it in seconds.
Why survey each wall separately?
Because on a one off house they are often different. An original solid wall, a cavity built extension and a later timber framed addition can all sit on one property and want three different answers.
What should we ask a firm quoting for a fill?
How many holes they drilled and what they saw in each. A quote written without opening the wall is guesswork, however confident the paperwork looks.
Does being inside the National Park change the options?
Only outside. External wall insulation needs an application here and design scrutiny is tight. Anything done to the inside face of the wall is unaffected.
Is external insulation realistic on a detached house?
Technically it is the strongest option, since nothing is lost inside and the cold bridging goes. The limit here is what the National Park will accept on the appearance, so ask before you plan around it.
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Get every elevation looked at, not just the front
Thomas comes out, measures each wall, opens the ones in doubt and prices them line by line. The visit and the written quote are both free.