Wall insulation in Minstead
In a small cottage room the thickness of a lining is a decision about the room, so we measure both before anything is ordered.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Minstead is cottages and small houses scattered along the lanes, and in a small room the thickness of an internal lining is not a technical detail, it is a decision about the room. A hundred millimetres off two walls of a nine foot bedroom is noticeable, so here the question is always how much performance you can buy for how little depth.
People ring about a cold cottage bedroom on an outside wall, mould behind furniture, and older buildings where somebody has said the walls are solid and left it there.
We measure the rooms as well as the walls, and we tell you what a lining will take off before you commit to it. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free, and the quote shows the thickness we are proposing rather than hiding it in a total.
The work
Insulating a small room without losing it
Depth against performance. Every internal lining is a trade between the U value you get and the width you lose. A thicker board performs better and takes more room. In a large Victorian front room that is easy. In a cottage bedroom off a landing it is the whole conversation, and it is why we measure the room and mark the new face on the floor before anything is ordered.
Thin systems where depth is tight. Aerogel backed board gives useful performance in very little thickness and earns its place at reveals, in narrow rooms and behind a staircase where a thicker build up simply will not go. It costs more per square metre than PIR and it is often cheaper overall, because it avoids moving a door, a stair string or a run of radiators.
The standard build ups. Insulated plasterboard on a continuous adhesive bed, or PIR such as Celotex or Kingspan between battens or a stud, taped and skimmed to BS 8000-8. A stud gives you a service void so sockets and pipes do not pierce the insulation; battens take less depth. On an old wall that has to keep drying, a vapour open build up replaces the foil faced board.
What moves with the wall. Sockets and switches come forward. Radiators come off and go back. Skirtings, architraves and window boards are renewed rather than refitted. Curtain poles, a fitted wardrobe and sometimes a door lining all have to be dealt with. That work is the bulk of the labour and it is the first thing a cheap quote leaves out.
Reveals, which decide whether it works. Bringing a wall in without insulating the reveal leaves a cold bridge right round every opening, and in a small room with a window in each wall that is a large share of what you were trying to fix. Reveals take a thin board or aerogel, the threshold and floor junction get returned, and joist ends built into a solid wall keep air around them.
Cavity walls on the later houses. Where there is a cavity, filling it costs you no floor area at all, which is the strongest argument for doing it. One hole in a mortar joint and a borescope gives the width, whether it is clear and dry and whether a failed or slumped fill is in there. Bonded bead or blown mineral wool goes in from outside. We do not offer a guarantee scheme of our own; a cavity fill is normally installed under an independent one, so ask whoever drills the wall which scheme covers it.
Ventilation. A small, tighter room condenses quickly. Trickle vents, a working extract fan and clear air bricks go in with the work, because Approved Document F sets the ventilation and BS 5250 covers the interstitial moisture a sealed wall can trap.
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, and the National Park property map will tell you whether your address sits in the Forest Central (South) conservation area. Inside it, cladding or external wall insulation is an application; lining a wall inside is not development at all, which the guidance on insulation confirms. There are listed buildings in the parish, and on those internal work needs consent as well. regulation 23 brings a whole wall up to the Part L standard once more than half of it is renovated, with building control sitting with the district.
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 cottage on a lane with rooms you can touch both walls of, a converted barn with height and no width, and a post-war house with straightforward access are three 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. If a room has grown mould since it was boarded or fitted out, that is worth looking at quickly, because it usually means a junction rather than the wall itself. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
What a lining costs you in floor space
It is worth being concrete about this, because it is the thing people are most surprised by. A lining is the insulation plus the board plus the skim, and on two walls of a small room the width you lose is measured in inches rather than millimetres by the time it is finished. In a bedroom that already only just takes a double bed, that changes the room.
There are three ways round it and we will talk you through all of them. Line the coldest wall only, usually the one taking the weather, and leave the others. Use a thin high performance board where depth is critical and a thicker one where it is not, so the depth goes where it can be afforded. Or, where the house has a cavity, fill it instead and keep every inch of the room, which is why the first thing we do is check whether there is one.
What we would not do is fit a thinner lining everywhere just to keep the rooms and then claim the performance of a proper one. Half a lining with cold bridges at every reveal warms the radiator bills and leaves the corner that made you ring in the first place.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Minstead, Emery Down, Newtown and the lanes towards Cadnam, broadly SO43, 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
Minstead questions we get asked
How much room does internal wall insulation actually take?
Enough to notice in a small room, which is why we mark the new wall face on the floor at the visit. You should be able to stand in the room and see it before you decide.
Is a thin high performance board worth the extra?
Where depth is genuinely tight, yes. At a reveal, in a narrow room or against a staircase it often saves more in joinery and moved fittings than it costs in material.
Can we insulate one wall rather than the whole room?
Yes, and on a cottage it is frequently the right answer. The wall taking the weather does most of the work. We detail the returns so the change of thickness does not leave a cold line.
Do the sockets and radiators have to move?
Yes, and that is on the quote as its own line. Skirtings, architraves and window boards are normally renewed rather than refitted, because they will not sit right on a new face.
Would filling a cavity be better if we have one?
For a small room, almost always, because it takes no floor space at all. That is the first thing the borescope settles.
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See what a lining would take off the room
Thomas comes out, measures the rooms as well as the walls and marks what you would lose before pricing it in writing. The visit and the quote are free.