Wall insulation in Poole

Finding out which wall you have. Age is a clue and nothing more. A nine inch solid brick wall and a narrow early cavity of brick and block look identical from the street once somebody has rendered them.

So we drill a small hole in a Poole mortar joint, put a borescope in and look: is there a gap, how wide is it, is it clear, is it dry, and is there already something in it. That check takes minutes and settles everything that follows.

Cavity wall insulation. Where the cavity is clear, dry and wide enough, it is filled from the outside through a pattern of drilled holes, made good in matching mortar. Bonded polystyrene bead flows into the awkward corners and stays put, which suits an exposed elevation. Blown mineral wool is the older answer and still sound on a sheltered wall.

Fill that has already failed. A Poole cavity filled decades ago can settle, and slumped material leaves a cold band across the top of the wall and a warm one under it. A wet cavity is worse: water crosses on the fill instead of running down the back of the outer leaf, and penetrating damp shows inside on the weather side. The borescope tells us which, and the answer is extraction before anything new goes in.

Internal wall insulation. IWI is the usual route on a solid Poole wall: insulated plasterboard bonded straight to the brick, or a batten and stud build up with mineral wool or PIR between, then boarded and skimmed. Rigid boards such as Celotex and Kingspan give you more for the depth, and an aerogel board earns its place in a room that cannot spare any. Most of the heat loss on a lined room is at the edges, so reveals, threshold, floor junction and joist ends all get wrapped.

External wall insulation. EWI is board fixed to the outside face with a render carrier over it and a thin coat finish on top. It keeps your room sizes, wraps a Poole house in one go rather than a room at a time, and deals with the thermal bridge at the eaves and the corners properly. It also thickens every reveal, so sills, overhang and rainwater goods need sorting out with it.

Ventilation, and what the wall then does with moisture. Insulating a wall moves the dew point and takes away the draughts that were quietly drying the house out. Trickle vents, an extract fan that genuinely shifts air, and any air brick that has been blocked up are part of the job. A taped, continuous vapour control layer keeps interstitial condensation out of the build up, and on an old wall breathable materials beat a sealed sandwich. An EPC moves on the back of it, though the payback shows in how the rooms feel long before it is on paper.

Wall insulation is not priced per square metre. The flat part of the wall is quick. Windows, doors and junctions take the time.

Cavity or solid. A clear, dry cavity can be filled in a day. A solid wall cannot be filled at all, so it is lined inside or insulated outside, which costs a good deal more. A borescope check settles which you have, and no honest quote is written before it.

The house. A quayside terrace with its front on the pavement, a thirties semi with a side path and a purpose built block of flats are three different problems. On a block, the whole building is usually done at once, through the managing agent.

Access. Cavity fill off a tower is quick. A three storey gable needs a scaffold. The work at height rules set the platform.

The junctions. Reveals at windows and doors, the floor junction, the eaves and any party wall are where heat escapes, and where condensation forms if the detail is wrong. That work is slow, and it is the first thing a cheap quote leaves out.

Ask other quotes whether the wall has been checked with a borescope, what system and thickness is used, how the reveals are detailed, whether ventilation is being dealt with, and who makes good the plaster afterwards.

Poole town is 6.7 miles from us in Boscombe. We insulate walls around the Old Town and the Quay, in Baiter, Hamworthy and Parkstone, and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council is the authority for planning and building control. This is Thomas Hannen's company.

He drills the test hole, looks at the wall and prices the work himself. We are Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. On Checkatrade, a verified customer gave us 10 out of 10. You pay nothing for the visit, and nothing for a written quote that lists each item. Before you book a visit in Poole, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Poole need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.