Wall insulation in Lymington
With 160 listed entries in the town, the surprise for a lot of owners is that lining a wall on the inside can need consent as much as touching the outside.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
People assume listed building consent is about the front elevation. It is not. It covers anything that affects the special interest of the building, inside as well as out, so stripping original plaster off a wall and screwing insulated boards to it is exactly the sort of work that needs an application. That is the first thing we check in this town.
The calls split neatly. Owners of the older houses on the hill and behind the quay, with solid walls and listing to think about. And owners of the post war and eighties houses out towards Pennington, where the question is simply whether the cavity is clear enough to fill.
Either way the visit starts with the wall. One drilled hole and a borescope where a cavity is possible, and on a solid wall the thickness, the plaster, the pointing or the render, and where the floor joists sit in it. 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.
The work in town
Two towns in one, and two different jobs
Cavity fill on the newer stock. 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, and this close to the water we would rather put bead into an exposed elevation than a fibrous fill. Holes are made good in a matched mortar and a house is normally a day.
What the borescope is looking for. Width, mortar bridging the ties, whether the cavity is wet, and whether an old fill has failed and slumped down it leaving the top of the wall bare. An outer leaf that is cracking or has blown render is a repair before it is an insulation job.
Solid walls behind the quay and on the hill. A nine inch brick wall has nothing to fill and cannot be injected, whatever anybody says at the door. It is internal wall insulation or external wall insulation, and on a listed or a street facing building the external route is usually closed.
Internal wall insulation on an old building. Where consent allows it, the build up is chosen for the wall rather than the catalogue. Wood fibre bedded in lime and finished in lime plaster on a soft or damp wall, so it stays breathable and vapour can pass. Insulated plasterboard, or PIR board such as Celotex or Kingspan on battens or a stud, only where the wall is dry, hard and modern enough to take a sealed face.
The joinery and the reveals. Old sash boxes and panelled shutters leave very little depth at a window reveal, and a standard board simply will not fit without butchering the joinery. A thin aerogel board goes in instead. That one detail decides more of these jobs than the wall itself.
The rest of the junctions. The threshold, the floor junction, the eaves, the joist ends and the party wall in a terrace. Each is a place where a cold bridge can be left behind, and a thermal bridge is where the dew point lands and black mould appears first.
Ventilation. Trickle vents, a working extract in the kitchen and bathroom, and air bricks kept clear. Approved Document F sets the expectation. On sash windows that cannot take a trickle vent we look at what else can be done rather than pretend the question does not arise.
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. Insulating the inside of an ordinary house is not development at all, which the Planning Portal confirms, and external wall insulation is treated differently because it changes the outer face. The town carries around 160 listed entries, the parish church of St Thomas the Apostle among them, and under the listed buildings act consent is needed for works affecting the character of such a building, inside included. 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 listed town house on the hill, a Victorian terrace behind the quay and a 1980s detached house out at Pennington 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 if the building is listed when you ring, because that changes what we are allowed to open up as well as what we would recommend. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Consent does not stop at the front door
Around 160 entries in this town are listed, and listing protects the whole building, not the facade. Original lath and lime plaster, panelling, shutters, cornices, fireplaces and the wall surfaces themselves are all part of what is protected. Taking any of that off to fit insulation is work affecting the character of the building, and doing it without consent is an offence rather than an oversight.
In practice that has three consequences. Internal wall insulation on a listed house needs an application and a conversation with the conservation officer before it is priced, not after. The build up is likely to be a breathable one, in wood fibre and lime, because that is what the officer will expect and what the wall needs anyway. And the reveals, the shutters and the joinery usually have to be worked around rather than removed, which is where the thin insulation materials earn their keep.
None of that means nothing can be done. Heat loss through the walls of an old town house is a big number and the payback is real. It means the job is planned properly, the paperwork is done first, and the parts of the building that make it worth living in survive the process.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Lymington, Pennington, Boldre and the villages down to Milford, broadly SO41, 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
Lymington questions we get asked
Do I need consent to insulate the inside of a listed house?
Very often yes, because consent covers work affecting the character of the building inside as well as out. We check before quoting rather than after.
What can be done on a listed wall that has to keep its plaster?
Sometimes very little on that particular wall, and the money is better spent on the windows, the draughts and the walls that are not original. We will tell you which is which.
Is there anything thin enough to fit behind a shutter box?
Aerogel board is, and it is the reason a lot of these reveals can be treated at all. It is expensive per sheet and used only where the depth genuinely is not there.
My house is out at Pennington. Is it a simpler job?
Usually much simpler. Post war and eighties houses have a proper cavity, and where the borescope shows it clear and dry a bead fill is normally a single day.
Does being near the water affect which fill you use?
It does on an exposed elevation. Bead bonds and does not wick, so we prefer it where driven rain hits the wall hardest.
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Find out what you are allowed to do, then what it costs
Thomas comes out, checks the wall and the listing position, and prices the system, the junctions and the ventilation in writing. Both are free.