Wall insulation in West Moors, where every room is an outside room
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.
Half the dwellings in West Moors 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.
What brings people to the phone is usually one of two things. 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.
The work
A long low wall to fill, and small rooms to line
Cavity fill on a bungalow. 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 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 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. 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 the 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
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.
West Moors is under Dorset Council. There is no conservation area in the village and a single listed entry, so wall insulation here is a building control question rather than a planning one. External work still changes the outside of the building, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls is the place to check that. Where an existing wall is upgraded, regulation 23 sets what it has to reach under Part L.
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 detached bungalow with a long perimeter, a chalet bungalow with a room in the roof and a flat in a small block on Station Road are three different jobs before anything 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 seven miles away and through West Moors regularly, so an address here is normally looked at within a day or two. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
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
A local firm you can check
We cover West Moors, Station Road, Pinehurst and the Uplands side, broadly BH22, under Dorset Council. 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
West Moors questions we get asked
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.
Nearby, and next door
Wall insulation near West Moors
Wall insulation nearby
Our other trades in West Moors
Everything we do in West Moors Wall insulation, all areas Every area we cover
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.