Wall insulation in West Moors
On a bungalow, lining the walls from inside takes space out of every room at once, so what the cavity can take matters more here than anywhere.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Nearly every house in West Moors has a cavity wall that can be filled once a borescope shows it clear and dry. Half the dwellings here are bungalows, and that changes the wall question more than people expect. In a bungalow every single room sits against an outside wall, so lining the walls from inside takes floor space out of all of them at once. Where there is a usable cavity, filling it is almost always the sensible route here.
In West Moors the trouble is usually heat or mould. A bungalow that costs a fortune to heat and has one end that never comes up to temperature. Or a wall that has gone mouldy at skirting level in a back bedroom, which is a floor junction problem far more often than it is a rising damp problem.
We come out, drill one small hole and read the cavity with a borescope, then walk the whole perimeter looking at reveals, the threshold and the eaves. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free, and insulation in West Moors covers the loft.
The work
A long low wall to fill, and small rooms to line
Cavity fill on a bungalow needs no scaffold. The wall is low, so the whole drill pattern is worked off a tower or a ladder rather than a scaffold, and a normal bungalow is drilled, filled and made good inside a day. The borescope check comes first every time: cavity width, mortar snots on the ties, and whether anything has already been blown in there.
Bead or mineral wool. Bonded polystyrene bead flows around ties and stays where it is put, which matters on the exposed western elevations of West Moors out towards the heath. Blown mineral wool is the older method and it still performs in a clean, sheltered cavity. Either way the holes are made good in mortar matched to what is on the wall, not filled with whatever is in the van.
Internal wall insulation, IWI. Where the wall is solid brick, or the cavity is too narrow or already wet, the lining goes on inside: insulated plasterboard bonded to the masonry, or a batten and stud frame filled with mineral wool. PIR laminate such as Celotex or Kingspan gets there in the least depth, with the vapour control layer taped so warm air cannot get behind the board.
External wall insulation, EWI. Boards, a render carrier and a render finish over the top. On a bungalow it is easier than on a house because there is no working at height to speak of, and it keeps every inch of room. What it changes is the appearance, and on a bungalow the eaves overhang usually has to be extended to suit.
Rooms that end up smaller. This is the honest bit. A lined West Moors wall costs you the depth of the build up, and in a bungalow that comes off the bedroom, the bathroom and the hall as well as the living room. In a small room we use a thinner high performance board and take the reveals in aerogel so the window frames are not left standing proud.
Junctions, and the ones bungalows get wrong. On a West Moors bungalow the floor junction is the big one, because a solid floor slab meeting a cold wall makes a cold bridge right where the skirting is. Reveals, the threshold, the eaves and the joist ends are the rest of it. A thermal bridge left at any of them collects condensation whatever the u value of the wall beside it.
Ventilation and draughts. Filling or lining the walls raises the airtightness of a West Moors house, and the moisture inside has to have a way out. Trickle vents, a working extract fan in the kitchen and bathroom and air bricks left clear are part of the job, and Approved Document F sets what is expected. Sealing draughts at the same time is what most people actually feel.
How it runs
Filling or lining the walls of a West Moors house
Thomas comes out and checks which walls you have before recommending anything, with a borescope through one small drilled hole where needed. He prices it himself. The written quote shows the survey, the system and its thickness, making good around windows and doors, ventilation, and disposal. Cavity fill should be done by a registered installer who issues a CIGA certificate, so ask whoever fills the wall for it.
Most homes in West Moors were built after the war with cavity walls, so the likely answer is cavity fill, drilled and injected from outside and made good to match the mortar. On a bungalow that is done from the ground or a short tower in a day or so. Where a cavity is already filled, or a wall is solid, internal lining is done room by room, with furniture moved and floors sheeted. If the borescope finds rubble or old fill that has slumped, we tell you and price extracting it before going on.
Dorset Council is the council here. The village has no conservation area and a lone listed entry, so for nearly every house wall insulation is a building control matter, not a planning one. Insulating the outside does change how the house looks, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls explains when that needs permission. Upgrading an existing wall brings in regulation 23, which sets the Part L standard it must meet.
Cost
Cavity, lining or outside: costing wall insulation here
The wall area is simple. What the wall is, and what happens at each opening, are what decide the price.
What is in the cavity now. A clear, dry cavity can be filled quickly. Some houses of this age were filled years ago with material that has slumped or got wet, and that has to come out before anything new goes in. A borescope check settles it, and a quote without one is a guess.
The shape of the house. A detached bungalow has a long perimeter for its floor area, so there are more metres of wall per room than in a two storey house. A chalet bungalow adds dormer cheeks and short walls in the roof room, which are insulated from inside. A flat in a small block on Station Road needs the freeholder's agreement for anything done to the outside.
Openings and edges. Round each window and door, at the floor and at the eaves, heat escapes and mould appears if the detail is poor. Internal lining makes those junctions slow, because reveals, sockets and skirtings all move.
Access. Single storey walls come off the ground or a tower. The work at height rules still set the platform.
Ask others whether they have looked inside your cavity, what material they are using, and who makes good the drill holes and decoration.
If damp has appeared
Damp or mould appearing after insulation
If an outside wall has gone damp or mouldy since it was filled or lined, ring rather than using the form. Usually rain is crossing the cavity through the fill, which shows low down on a wall facing the weather, or warm indoor air is meeting a cold spot at a corner or reveal and condensing, often behind furniture.
The cure is different for each, so nothing is pulled out until we have looked. The first visit finds which it is and what can be done about it. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Should nobody answer, you will get a call back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
A bungalow spends its heat differently
Put the same floor area on one level instead of two and the perimeter gets longer, the roof gets bigger and the walls get lower. So on a bungalow the wall is not usually the largest single route for heat loss, the ceiling is. That is worth saying plainly, because it decides the order you do things in rather than whether you do them.
What the shape does change is the cost of lining from inside. In a two storey house you can line the cold gable and leave the rest alone, and most of the rooms never notice. Here every room is an outside room, so the same decision touches the whole house and takes width off small bedrooms and a narrow hall. That is why, where the borescope shows a clear dry cavity of a usable width, filling it is nearly always the right answer in West Moors, and why we will say so even though lining is the bigger job.
Who you are dealing with
Wall insulation for Pinehurst and the Uplands side
We insulate walls across West Moors, including Station Road, Pinehurst and the Uplands side, broadly BH22, under Dorset Council. The village is a 7.1 mile trip from our base at Boscombe.
You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, a business owned by Thomas Hannen, who checks the walls in person and sets the price himself. A customer verified by Checkatrade gave us 10 out of 10. Neither the survey visit nor the written, itemised quote costs you anything. If the loft needs doing too, see our loft insulation page for West Moors. Before you book a visit in West Moors, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in West Moors?
Most repairs in West Moors 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 West Moors |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for West Moors. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers West Moors, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, West Moors has listed buildings. If yours is one, or stands in the grounds of one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers West Moors. |
Questions
Questions about wall insulation in West Moors
Is cavity fill worth doing on a bungalow?
Where the cavity is clear, dry and wide enough, yes, and it is one of the cheaper things you can do to the fabric. It is not a substitute for the loft, which on a bungalow loses more.
How long does the work take and how much access do you need?
A normal bungalow fill is a day, worked from outside off a tower. Internal lining is room by room and slower, because the room has to be cleared, the plaster made good and the decoration put back.
Will lining the walls make my bungalow noticeably smaller?
You lose the depth of the build up on every wall you line, and in a bungalow that is most of them. In tight rooms we use a thinner board and aerogel at the reveals to keep the loss down.
My back bedroom is mouldy along the skirting. Is that the wall?
Usually it is the floor junction rather than the wall above it. Where a cold slab meets the wall you get a cold strip at skirting level, and condensation lands there first.
Do I need a scaffold for external wall insulation on a bungalow?
Rarely: a tower is normally enough on a single storey, which is one of the reasons external work is more affordable here than on a two storey house.
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Wall insulation near West Moors
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Free quote
Get the bungalow walls read before you choose a system
Thomas comes out, borescopes the cavity, walks the perimeter and prices the work in writing. The visit and the quote are free.