Wall insulation in Poole
A good share of the older houses near the quay have no cavity to fill at all, so the first job is finding out what your wall actually is.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Whether a wall can be filled is settled by drilling one small hole and looking inside with a borescope, not by the age of the house or by what the neighbours had done. In the older streets near the quay the answer is often that there is no cavity there at all, and the work has to go on the inside face instead.
People ring for three reasons. A north facing bedroom that never warms up and carries black mould in the corners by February. A wall filled years ago that now has damp patches marching across it. And a solid walled house where the heating runs all day and the room still feels cold.
We come and look before we say a word about a system. A borescope through one drilled hole, a moisture reading on the inside face, and a walk round the outside to see what the weather does to each elevation. Then it goes into a written itemised quote, with the survey, the system, the junctions and the making good on separate lines. The visit and the quote are both free.
The work
What is really in the wall, and what can go in it
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 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 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 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 the building 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.
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.
Lining the inside face of a wall is not development and needs no application, which Planning Portal guidance on insulation confirms. The outside face is another matter, and inside the Town Centre Heritage conservation area it needs one, so check the boundary because the council keeps the list. A listed building needs consent for internal work too. It is notifiable either way: regulation 23 means a renovated thermal element has to reach the Part L standard in Approved Document L, and building control sign off the U value and the ventilation together.
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 quayside terrace with the pavement at the front, a thirties semi with a side path, and a purpose built block of flats are three different problems before a single hole 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. We are under six miles away, so a BH15 address is normally seen within a day or two, and we turn up with a moisture meter rather than an opinion. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Why the oldest walls near the quay have to keep breathing
The streets closest to the water were built in soft brick and lime mortar, long before anybody put a cavity in a wall. Such a wall has always taken water in during a south westerly and let it out again, inwards as much as outwards, because nothing was stopping it. Line the inside with a sealed board and a plastic membrane and you close that drying route off. The rain still gets in. It just has nowhere to go but the back of your new plaster and the ends of the joists buried in the wall.
So on a pre-1919 wall we build it up a different way. Wood fibre or a mineral board bedded in a lime based adhesive with no void behind it, and a finish that lets vapour through rather than a foil face that will not. Less insulation for the depth, and a wall that carries on drying. Where an elevation takes the full weather we deal with the rain first, because BS 5250 is clear that you manage moisture in a wall before you insulate it.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover the old town and the quay, Baiter, Hamworthy, Parkstone and the BH15 streets around them, with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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
Poole questions we get asked
How do you tell whether my wall has a cavity to fill?
By drilling one small hole in a mortar joint and putting a borescope through it. That shows the width of the gap, whether it is clear and dry, and whether anything is already in there.
Our house was filled in the nineties. Is it still doing anything?
Often yes, sometimes not. Old fill can settle and leave a cold band along the top of the wall, and a cavity that has been wetting has stopped working altogether.
How much room does internal wall insulation take off?
Depends on the board. A thin aerogel lining takes very little, a battened build up takes a good deal more. We set the thickness against the room rather than a target U value picked in advance.
Can insulating a wall actually cause damp?
It can, if nothing is done about ventilation. Warm damp air still has to leave the house, and once the draughts are gone it condenses on whatever surface is left cold.
How long will the house be disrupted by the work?
Barely at all for a cavity fill, which is a day and all of it outside. Internal lining is different, a room at a time, with plastering and decorating behind it.
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Find out what your wall actually is
Thomas comes out, drills one hole, looks inside with a borescope and prices the honest answer in writing. The visit and the quote are free.