Wall insulation in Sixpenny Handley
On an exposed chalk site the wall is not always the weak point, so the survey settles what is worth doing before anything is quoted.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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An older house in Sixpenny Handley is usually solid wall and is lined, a later one may have a cavity a borescope can check for a fill, and not every cold room is a wall problem, and on the open chalk up here a fair number are not. A house standing on its own on high ground can lose as much through draughts and a thin loft as through the middle of a wall, so the honest first question is whether the wall is the thing worth spending on at all.
The usual signs are a room that will not hold heat, mould in a corner of a bedroom, or a cavity somebody once offered to fill and nobody ever explained.
The visit is a survey rather than a pitch. Where the wall is genuinely the weak point we say so and price it; where the draughts, the loft or a wet outer leaf come first, we say that instead and put them in the right order on the quote. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free, and insulation in Sixpenny Handley covers the loft and draughts.
The work
The order things should be done in
Draughts first, because nothing else is as cheap. On an exposed site the air moving through a house does more than the fabric does. Gaps at floor edges, unsealed loft hatches, letterboxes, old sash boxes, service holes behind kitchen units. Sealing those costs very little and the payback is immediate. It also has to be done with the ventilation, not instead of it, or the moisture has nowhere to go.
Then whatever is letting water in. On a Sixpenny Handley house, open joints, cracked or blown render, a gutter overflowing down one elevation. A wall carrying penetrating damp conducts heat far better than a dry one and no insulation cures that. Repairing the outer leaf is often the cheapest thermal improvement on the house, and it is the one nobody sells you.
Then the cavity, if there is one. One hole in a mortar joint and a borescope gives the width, whether it is clear and dry, whether the wall ties are bridged and whether a failed or slumped fill is in there already. A sound cavity takes bonded bead or blown mineral wool, drilled from outside and made good in matched mortar. We do not offer a guarantee scheme of our own. A fill by a registered installer normally carries a CIGA certificate, so ask whoever drills your wall for it.
Solid walls. Nine inch brick, flint and rubble in Sixpenny Handley, with nothing to fill. Internal wall insulation means insulated plasterboard on a continuous adhesive bed, or PIR such as Celotex or Kingspan on battens or a stud, taped and skimmed to BS 8000-8. External wall insulation means boards and a fresh render over a render carrier, which gives the better U value but changes the look of the building from every direction, and up here there is nothing to hide behind.
The junctions, whichever route you take. Reveals in a Sixpenny Handley house take a thin board or aerogel. The threshold and the floor junction get returned, not stopped short. Joist ends built into a solid wall keep air around them. A lining that stops dead at a party wall leaves a cold strip that grows mould. Every thermal bridge you leave takes back a share of the heat loss you paid to stop.
Ventilation, which is not optional. Insulating a Sixpenny Handley house raises the inside surface above the dew point, which is what actually stops condensation, but the moisture still has to leave the house. Trickle vents, a working extract fan in the kitchen and bathroom, air bricks kept clear. Approved Document F sets the ventilation and BS 5250 covers the interstitial moisture a sealed wall can trap.
What we would talk you out of. Filling a wet cavity. Sealing a solid Sixpenny Handley wall that is taking water. Lining one room and leaving the ventilation as it was. And spending on a wall while the loft is thin, because on a house like these the roof is usually still the better buy.
How it runs
Insulating solid or cavity walls, from borescope to finish
Thomas Hannen's first job, once he has driven up from Boscombe, is to find out what your walls are. If they might be cavity, he drills one small hole and looks inside with a borescope to see if the cavity is clear and dry. If they are solid brick or flint, he will talk you through lining them inside or insulating outside, and what each means for your rooms.
The quote is written and broken into the survey and borescope check, the system and its thickness, making good round windows and doors, ventilation, and waste. The quote says who installs any fill. For internal lining, each room is cleared and sheeted, and dust is kept in that room. If we open a wall and find damp or rotten timber behind it, you get a photo and a price before we carry on.
Dorset Council deals with planning and building control. Lining a wall inside is not development, as the guidance on insulation says, but cladding or rendering outside is covered by what the rules say about cladding a wall. There is no conservation area here, but in the Cranborne Chase National Landscape anything visible gets scrutiny. Listed buildings need listed building consent even for internal lining. Under regulation 23, renovating more than half a wall brings it up to the Part L standard.
Cost
Solid, cavity or mixed: what a wall job costs depends on
We do not price wall insulation by the square metre. The flat middle of the wall is quick; the windows, doors and floor edges are not.
Access. Cavity fill is drilled from outside, so a bungalow comes off a tower and a tall gable needs a scaffold, as the work at height rules require. Internal lining is done from inside, room by room.
What your wall is. An empty, dry cavity is usually a day's filling. A solid brick or flint wall has nothing to fill, so it gets lined inside or insulated outside, which is far more work. One small hole and a borescope tells us which before anything is priced.
The junctions. Heat leaks, and condensation shows, at the window and door reveals, the floor edge, the eaves and any wall shared with next door. Detailing those properly is slow and makes up most of the labour.
Breathability. An old solid wall needs to let moisture out. A lining that traps it causes damp, so the system has to suit the wall, often a breathable board or wood fibre rather than foil-backed foam.
Ask other quotes if they have checked the wall with a borescope, what thickness and U-value they are aiming for, how the reveals and floor edge are done, and who makes good the plaster afterwards.
If damp has appeared
Damp patches after a wall was insulated
If damp or black mould has appeared on an outside wall since it was insulated, the fill or a cold spot is usually to blame. Rain may be crossing the cavity along the fill, or warm air from the room may be reaching a cold spot at a junction.
Keep the room aired and wipe the mould with a suitable cleaner, but do not paint over it. On the first visit we look before removing anything, because the fix depends on which cause it is. We photograph what we find and report back to you. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Call us rather than using the form, and if the call goes unanswered, we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Worth knowing
Sometimes the wall is not the answer
The downland here is open, the ground is high and there is very little shelter, so wind does more to these houses than it does to a house in a village bottom.
Wind drives air through every gap in a building, and air moving through a house carries heat out with it far faster than heat conducts through nine inches of masonry. That is why a draughty, well insulated house can still feel cold and an ordinary house that has been properly sealed can feel warm.
So the honest order on a lot of these properties is draughtproofing, then the loft, then the wall. It is not the order that sells the biggest job, and it is the order we will put on the quote. Where the wall is genuinely the weak point, an end wall taking the weather or a solid wall with a cold, wet inside face, we will say that too and price it properly.
The one thing that is never optional is ventilation. Seal a house up on an exposed site without giving the moisture a way out and you swap a cold house for a damp one, and damp costs more to put right than heat does.
Who you are dealing with
Wall insulation for Woodcutts, Deanland and the village
We insulate walls in Sixpenny Handley, Woodcutts and Deanland and towards Cranborne, 17.1 miles from our Boscombe base, all in Dorset Council's area. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is the company, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and it is run by its owner, Thomas Hannen, who prices the job in person. Before you book a visit in Sixpenny Handley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Checkatrade has a verified 10 out of 10 from one of our customers. Coming to look is free, and the itemised quote in writing is free too.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Sixpenny Handley?
Most repairs in Sixpenny Handley 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.
| Question | In Sixpenny Handley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Sixpenny Handley. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Sixpenny Handley, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Sixpenny Handley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about wall insulation in Sixpenny Handley
How do I know whether to spend on the walls or the roof?
By what the house is actually losing and what it costs to stop. On most detached houses out in Sixpenny Handley the loft and the draughts come first. We will tell you if that is your case instead of quoting for the wall anyway.
Is draughtproofing something you do as well?
It goes on the same quote as its own line, because it is usually the cheapest part and the quickest to show. It has to be done alongside proper ventilation rather than instead of it.
Will filling the cavity make the house feel less draughty?
A little, because a filled cavity slows air moving inside the wall, but it is not a draughtproofing measure. If the draught comes under a door or round a hatch, the cavity will not touch it.
The house is exposed on all four sides. Does that change the fill?
It can. On a badly exposed elevation a full fill can carry driven rain across, so bonded bead or leaving that one wall clear may be the better answer. It is a per elevation decision.
Does insulating a wall improve the EPC much?
Usually yes, but an EPC is a model instead of a measurement. It will not notice a cold bridge at every reveal, and your bedroom corner will.
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Find out whether the wall is worth doing first
Thomas comes out, works out where the heat is actually going and prices the jobs in the order they should be done. The visit and the quote are free.