Wall insulation in Lytchett Matravers
Cavity walls checked with a camera before a bead goes anywhere near them, solid walls lined from the inside, and failed fill taken out, across the village and BH16.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Nothing sensible can be said about a wall here until somebody has looked inside it. Most of Lytchett Matravers went up between the war and the early 1980s, so the great majority of houses in the village do have a cavity, but whether that cavity is clear, dry and wide enough to fill is a question a borescope answers in ten minutes and a salesman answers in none.
People ring for three reasons. A north facing bedroom wall that feels cold to the hand and carries black mould in the corner every February. A house filled years ago that is now colder upstairs than down. And a stone or nine inch section on an older cottage that no fill will ever touch, where the only route is lining the inside.
We come out, drill one hole in a mortar joint, put a camera into the cavity and tell you what is in there. Then you get a free written itemised quote with the survey, the system and its thickness, the reveals and the making good on separate lines.
The work
What is in the cavity, and what to do about it
The borescope check comes first. A 12mm hole in a mortar joint, a camera on a stalk, and three things are settled: how wide the cavity is, what is already in it, and whether the outer leaf is wet with penetrating damp. On the 1970s and early 1980s houses here the cavity is often only 50mm, and half of that can be mortar droppings on the wall ties.
Cavity fill, where the wall earns it. A clear, dry cavity takes bonded polystyrene bead or blown mineral wool, drilled on a set pattern and injected under control. Bead flows better into a narrow cavity and does not slump; mineral wool is more forgiving on an irregular brick and block wall. Eaves, the base of the wall and every reveal are closed off first. A fill is normally covered by an independent scheme run separately from the installer, so ask any firm what paperwork you get.
Failed and slumped fill. Where a wall was filled decades ago the camera often shows the top 300mm empty and a compacted mass lower down. That is a cold band across the top of every room, and it is where the condensation and the black mould turn up. The fix is extraction through the drilled holes, a clean out, then a refill in bead. Where the fill is wet, extraction is the whole job.
Solid walls, and why they cannot be filled. The older cottages along the lanes are nine inch solid brick or rubble stone with no cavity at all. Internal wall insulation means insulated plasterboard bonded and fixed back, or a stud and batten frame with mineral wool or PIR board such as Celotex or Kingspan between it. It takes 60 to 100mm off the room, and where a narrow hall cannot spare that, an aerogel backed board gives a similar U value in a third of the thickness. Reveals returned, the floor junction carried down, joist ends thought about, and a vapour control layer taped so the dew point cannot sit in the build up as interstitial condensation. On old masonry we favour a breathable lining that dries inwards.
External wall insulation. Boards fixed outside, a render carrier and a thin coat finish. It keeps the room size, cures cold bridging and gives the biggest cut in heat loss, but it changes how the building looks, so it is a planning question before it is a thermal one.
Ventilation, because insulating a house makes it tighter. Every job includes a look at extract in the kitchen and bathroom and at trickle vents in the windows. Better airtightness without better ventilation turns a slightly cold house into a mouldy one, and Approved Document F sets what that ventilation has to do.
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.
Insulating the inside face of a wall needs no planning permission, which the Planning Portal page on insulation sets out plainly. Insulation added to the outside is different, and the Planning Portal guidance on external walls explains where an application comes in. Dorset Council is the planning authority, there is no conservation area over the village, and the 15 listed entries in the parish are the only addresses needing listed building consent. Building control still applies: under regulation 23, renovating a thermal element means bringing the whole of it up to the current standard. The work is zero rated for VAT.
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 1970s detached with clear brickwork, a semi with a conservatory across the back and an older cottage in solid stone are three different jobs before a drill comes out. 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. Lytchett Matravers is about nine miles from us, so an address in the village is normally looked at within a day or two. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Fifty millimetres, and what is sitting on the ties
The most useful number about a wall in this village is the width of its cavity, and it is the one nobody is told. Houses built here through the 1970s and into the early 1980s generally went up with a nominal 50mm cavity, which was the standard of the day and half what a house built now would have. Fifty millimetres of bead is worth having. Fifty millimetres that is partly bridged is not, and it can be worse than nothing.
The bridging comes from the build. Mortar squeezed out of the joints as the bricklayer worked, dropped down the cavity and landed on the wall ties. Every one of those ledges is a path for water from the outer leaf to the inner one. Blow bead in around them and the first sign is a damp patch on an inside wall a metre above the skirting, on the elevation that takes the weather.
So the camera decides it, not the age. Clear cavity, dry outer leaf and a full 50mm and we will fill it, and the payback on that is short. Heavily bridged, or wet at the ties, and we will tell you to leave it empty and put the money into the draughts and one internally lined wall.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Lytchett Matravers, Lytchett Minster, Upton and the BH16 addresses around them, with Dorset Council for planning and building control. 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
Lytchett Matravers questions we get asked
How do you know whether my cavity can be filled?
We drill one small hole in a mortar joint and put a borescope through it. That shows the width of the cavity, whether anything is already in there and whether the outer leaf is wet. It is the only honest basis for a quote.
Our house was built in 1978. Is the cavity wide enough?
Usually about 50mm, which is fillable if it is clear. The problem with that era is the mortar droppings left on the wall ties, which bridge the gap and carry water across.
Can a stone cottage in the village have cavity insulation?
No. A solid stone or nine inch brick wall has no cavity to fill, and drilling one achieves nothing. The routes are internal lining or external insulation.
Will insulating the walls make condensation worse?
Done properly it cures it, because the cold surface the moisture was landing on is no longer cold. It goes wrong when a house is made tighter and the extract fans and trickle vents are ignored.
Does wall insulation change our EPC rating?
It usually does, because wall construction carries weight in the assessment. We do not do the assessment, so ask your assessor to re-inspect once the work is finished.
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Find out what is actually inside your walls
Thomas comes out, puts a camera into the cavity and tells you whether filling it is the right answer or the wrong one. The visit and the written quote are both free.