Wall insulation in New Milton
Cavities checked for a boundary barrier before a bead goes in, cold gables warmed and the party wall corner detailed, across New Milton and BH25.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
A quarter of the homes in New Milton are terraced and another quarter are flats, so a lot of the walls people want insulated here are shared. That changes the job before any material is chosen: a cavity in a terrace can run past your boundary into next door, and a party wall you want to batten out belongs to two households, not one.
The calls are usually a cold end of terrace gable, a flat where one outside wall is freezing and nobody is sure who authorises work to it, or mould in the corner where an outside wall meets the party wall.
We work out whose wall is whose at the first visit, survey what is there and put it in writing so it can be shown to a neighbour or a managing agent. The site visit and the itemised written quote are both free.
The work
Shared walls, gables and what can be filled
The borescope check. One hole in a mortar joint, a camera in the cavity, and we can see the width, what is already in there and whether the outer leaf is wet. New Milton is mostly brick and block with a nominal 50mm cavity, and the 1980s stock that dominates here often has a wider one.
Cavity fill in a terrace. Where the cavity is clear and dry it takes bonded polystyrene bead or blown mineral wool. The complication is that unless there is a cavity barrier on the boundary, material injected into your wall can travel into your neighbour's. We look before we drill, and where there is none we fit one or limit the fill. A fill is normally covered by an independent scheme run separately from the installer.
End of terrace gables. The gable is the one wall in a terrace that faces the weather over its whole area, which is why the end house is always the cold one. It takes fill where the cavity allows and internal lining or external wall insulation where it does not, and on a gable an EWI system with boards, a render carrier and a thin coat finish gives the biggest drop in heat loss of anything available.
Internal lining, IWI. 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. Reveals returned, the floor junction carried down, joist ends thought about and a breathable vapour control layer taped so the dew point does not sit in the build up as interstitial condensation. Where a threshold has no room, an aerogel backed board does the same in a third of the thickness.
The party wall itself. Lining the face of a party wall is rarely worth much, because the home on the other side is heated too. What is worth doing is the junction, where the outside wall meets it and forms a cold bridge running the full height of the building. That corner is where black mould turns up, and it is cured by returning the lining along the party wall 400 to 600mm rather than stopping at it.
Failed fill. Slumped fibre leaves a cold band of heat loss at the top of the wall and a wet cavity holds damp against the inner leaf. Both are extracted through a drilled pattern, bagged and taken away, then refilled in bead once the wall is dry. On a mid terrace with one small elevation the payback on that is quick.
Ventilation. Extract in the kitchen and bathroom, trickle vents in the windows and air bricks kept clear. Approved Document F sets what the ventilation has to do, and it matters more the moment 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.
Work to a party wall brings in the Party Wall etc. Act, which means serving notice on the adjoining owner before cutting into or fixing to it. New Forest District Council is the planning authority, there is no conservation area over the town and only nine listed entries, so internal work needs no permission at all, as the Planning Portal page on insulation confirms, while external wall insulation can need an application under the Planning Portal guidance on external walls. Building control applies through regulation 23, which sets the Part L target in Approved Document L, and in a flat the freeholder or agent instructs the work rather than the leaseholder.
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 mid terrace with one small elevation, an end of terrace with a full gable and a purpose built flat 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. New Milton is ten miles from us and we are along that stretch most weeks. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
In a terrace, the cavity does not stop at your boundary
In a house built as a single terrace the two leaves of the wall usually run continuously from one end of the block to the other, and the party wall between the houses is built up between them. Unless the builder put a proper vertical cavity barrier on each boundary, the gap in your wall is physically the same gap as the gap in your neighbour's.
That has two effects. Bead injected into your elevation can migrate sideways, so your neighbour ends up with material in a wall they never asked to have filled and you have paid to warm somebody else's house. The reverse happens too: a neighbour's fill can already be in your wall, which is why the camera sometimes finds material in a house whose owner is certain nothing was ever done.
So on a terrace we check the boundary before drilling, and where no barrier exists we either fit one or restrict the fill to the elevation we can control. It is also why fixing anything to a party wall means notice under the Party Wall Act. None of it is difficult, but it is a fortnight of process, and finding out after the material is ordered is how neighbours fall out.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover New Milton, Barton on Sea, Ashley, Bashley and the BH25 addresses around them, with New Forest District 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
New Milton questions we get asked
Can our terraced house have the cavity filled on its own?
Often yes, but only after we have checked whether there is a cavity barrier on the boundary. Without one the material can travel into the next house, which is neither fair nor useful.
Why is the corner by the party wall always mouldy?
Because two walls meeting form a cold bridge over the full height of the building, and that corner runs colder than the middle of either wall. Returning the lining a short way along the party wall cures it.
Who authorises insulation work in a flat?
Normally the freeholder or the managing agent rather than the leaseholder, because the outside walls are usually retained under the lease. We will survey and quote in a form you can hand to them.
Do we need a party wall notice to insulate?
If you are cutting into or fixing to the shared wall, yes. Lining an ordinary outside wall inside your own home does not need one. We will tell you which side of that line the job falls on.
Is an end of terrace worth insulating externally?
A gable is the strongest case anywhere, because the whole wall is exposed and no room is lost inside. It needs a planning check first, the detailing at the eaves has to be right, and it shifts an EPC further than anything else here.
Nearby, and next door
Wall insulation near New Milton
Wall insulation nearby
Our other trades in New Milton
Everything we do in New Milton Wall insulation, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Sort out whose wall it is before you fill it
Thomas comes out, checks the boundary and the cavity, and prices the work in a form you can show a neighbour or an agent. The visit and the written quote are both free.