Wall insulation in Hyde
Water coming off the escarpment keeps the foot of a wall damp, and that is exactly where a badly detailed lining goes wrong first.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Insulating a wall makes the masonry behind the lining colder. If the bottom of that wall is already taking water off the ground, colder means wetter, and the first thing to suffer is the plaster at skirting level and any timber built in near it. So on these lanes we look at the foot of the wall before we look at anything else.
The calls are usually a cold room on the weather side, mould appearing along the bottom of an outside wall, or a straightforward question about whether the cavity in a newer house is worth filling.
The visit settles what the wall is and what is happening at its base. Thickness and construction, one drilled hole and a borescope where a cavity is possible, the state of the render or pointing, whether the ground has crept up above the damp course, and where the floor joists sit. Then a written itemised quote with the survey, the system, the junctions and the ventilation on separate lines. The visit and the quote are free.
What we do here
Walls, linings, and getting the bottom right
Finding out what the wall is. Rendered, a nine inch solid wall and a brick and block cavity wall are hard to tell apart from the road. A borescope through one hole shows whether there is a cavity, how wide it is, whether it is clear and dry, and whether an old fill has failed and slumped into the bottom of it.
Cavity fill. Bonded polystyrene bead blown through a drilled pattern, or blown mineral wool where the wall is sheltered and the outer leaf sound. A wet cavity is not filled, and neither is one bridged with mortar or fed by an outer leaf that is cracking or blown. Holes are made good in a matched mortar and a house is normally a day.
Internal wall insulation. Insulated plasterboard bonded and fixed to a flat wall, or PIR board such as Celotex or Kingspan between battens or a timber stud, then boarded and skimmed. On an older wall that has to stay breathable we build it in wood fibre and lime instead, so vapour can pass rather than stall behind a sealed face.
The floor junction. This is the detail on these walls. The lining has to be taken down properly and stopped with a capillary break rather than simply run into a damp skirting, and where the base of the wall is wet a vapour open build up and a lime plaster low down give it somewhere to dry. Gypsum board sitting in damp is a mould problem waiting to start.
External wall insulation. Board, a render carrier and mesh, then a through coloured finish, with a proper stop and a drip well clear of the ground. It keeps the masonry warm so interstitial condensation has nowhere to form, but here it is a conservation area application before it is a technical decision.
The other junctions. Reveals at windows and doors, the threshold, the eaves, the joist ends and any party wall. A shallow reveal takes a thin aerogel board. Miss one and you have made a cold bridge, and a thermal bridge is where the dew point lands and black mould appears.
Ventilation and air bricks. Trickle vents, a working extract in the kitchen and bathroom, and air bricks kept clear and above the wet, which Approved Document F expects. Blocking an air brick to stop a draught is how a dry underfloor void turns damp.
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.
The New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority here rather than the district council, and Hyde sits within the Western Escarpment conservation area, so anything that changes the outside face gets more scrutiny than it would elsewhere. The NPA's interactive property map shows what applies to an address, and its heritage pages cover consent. There are 21 listed entries in the parish, and on a listed building consent takes in internal work too. 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 forest cottage sitting low against the lane, a post war house with a proper cavity and a rendered extension on the back 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 how high up the wall the patch reaches, because a stain that stops a metre off the floor is a different fault from one that starts at the ceiling. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Why the foot of the wall decides the job
The ground here sheds water fast. Rain off the escarpment finds the lanes and the yards, the surface water risk is rated high across this parish, and Huckles Brook is close enough that the whole valley floor stays wet through winter. What that means at a house is splash, standing water against the base of a wall, and ground that has often been built up over the years until it sits above the original damp course. The flood risk service will show you what applies at your address.
A wall in that position is already carrying moisture at the bottom, and it copes because it dries inwards into a heated room. Line the inside face and you take that away. The masonry behind the board is colder, it holds more water, and the only place moisture can gather is at the back of the lining where it meets the floor.
So the build up at the bottom is not a detail, it is the job. A capillary break under the lining, a vapour open board and a lime plaster in the lowest part of the wall, the ground outside cut back and drained away from the house where that is possible, and the air bricks kept clear and above the wet. Get that right and a lining works here. Screw insulated plasterboard straight down to a damp skirting and you will be washing mould off it within two winters.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Hyde, Frogham, Godshill and the lanes around Fordingbridge, broadly SP6, under the New Forest National Park Authority. 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
Hyde questions we get asked
Can a wall that gets damp at the bottom still be insulated?
Usually yes, but not with a sealed board taken down to the floor. It wants a capillary break, a vapour open build up low down and the ground outside dealt with at the same time.
Should the ground outside be lowered before we insulate?
Where it has crept above the damp course, yes. Cutting it back and getting the water away does more for a damp wall than any thickness of insulation will.
Is the National Park the planning authority for my house?
In this parish it is, rather than the district council. The NPA's property map will tell you exactly what applies to your address before you commit to anything.
Why does mould appear along the skirting rather than higher up?
Because that is the coldest and dampest part of the wall once it has been lined. It is nearly always a detailing fault at the floor junction rather than a lack of insulation.
Where does the saving actually come from?
It usually does, because heat loss through the walls is a large share of the total and the payback is genuine. We will not attach a figure to it, since that depends on how you heat the house.
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Get the foot of the wall looked at first
Thomas comes out, checks what the wall is and what is happening at its base, and prices the lining, the junctions and the ventilation in writing. Both are free.