Wall insulation in West Parley
A bungalow carries a long outside wall for a small floor area, which is exactly why wall work returns more here than on a two storey house.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Most houses in West Parley have a cavity that can be filled if a borescope shows it clear and dry and the weather side is sound. More than a third of the homes here are bungalows, and a bungalow carries a long outside wall wrapped round a small floor area. That geometry is why wall work returns more on a single storey house than on a two storey one of the same size, and why the whole job normally happens off a tower.
The usual problems: a bungalow cold down one flank, a filled wall staining on the south west corner after a wet spell, or a re-render planned and a question about insulating at the same time.
None of it is specified from the pavement. One hole in a mortar joint, a borescope down it, meter readings taken off the inside face, then a lap of the building to see which elevation catches the weather. Only after that does a free written itemised quote get drawn up, splitting out the survey, the system, the junction work and the making good. For the loft, see insulation in West Parley.
The work
Long walls, low eaves and what suits them
The first figure is the width of the gap. Rendered over, a solid nine inch wall gives nothing away, and neither does an early cavity in brick and block. So a hole gets drilled and a borescope goes down it. Is there a gap. How wide. Is it clear. Is it dry. Has anything been put in there already. Minutes of work, and every figure below hangs off the answers.
The second is the length of the perimeter. Spread a given floor area across one storey and the wall wrapped round it runs much longer than it would on two. Every extra metre leaks heat, which is why a cavity fill moves the numbers further here than on a semi. Given a gap that is clear, dry and generous, material blows in from outside on a drilled pattern, pointed up afterwards in matched mortar. Bonded polystyrene bead reaches corners and stays where it lands, so weather elevations get bead; a sheltered wall does perfectly well on blown mineral wool.
The third is the height off the ground. Nothing on a West Parley bungalow is far up. A tower reaches the whole drilling pattern, no scaffold stands for weeks, and the access line on the quote stays small. That figure decides whether external work is affordable at all, since reaching a two storey elevation is what makes it expensive elsewhere.
The fourth is the depth of the eaves overhang. External wall insulation is board on the outer face, a render carrier, then a thin coat finish, and on one storey it lifts the thermal bridge away from the corners and the floor junction together. Whether it can happen simply comes down to that overhang. Post-war bungalows in West Parley were given a shallow one, and a wall face pushed out by a hundred millimetres runs past it unless the roof edge is extended. Reveals, sills and rainwater pipes travel outwards with the wall.
The fifth is the depth you can spare inside the room. Internal wall insulation runs from roughly twenty five millimetres up to a hundred, depending what goes on the wall. Insulated plasterboard can be bonded straight to it; battens and studs can carry mineral wool or PIR instead, boarded and skimmed after. Per millimetre, Celotex and Kingspan do more, while aerogel board is for the room with nothing to give. Ceilings sit low in this stock, so the depth you are willing to surrender is a genuine conversation. Reveals, threshold, floor junction and joist ends get wrapped at any thickness.
The last figure is the moisture reading. Material in a West Parley wall settles across decades, and slumped fill shows up as a cold stripe under the eaves. Worse is a wet cavity: rain crosses on the fill, penetrating damp arrives on the weather face, black mould gathers behind the furniture. The borescope reads both. Nothing is refilled until the old material comes out. Insulation shifts the dew point and takes away the draughts that were quietly drying the place, so trickle vents, an extract fan that works and any air brick blocked up over the years belong to the same job, with a taped continuous vapour control layer holding interstitial condensation out of the fabric. An EPC moves on the back of it; what you feel is the airtightness and the heat loss you stop paying for.
How it runs
Checking and insulating the walls of a post-war bungalow
Most West Parley homes were built after the war and have a cavity wall. Many were filled years ago, some well and some badly. Thomas starts with a borescope check through a small drilled hole to see whether the cavity is empty, filled, or full of mortar droppings. The written quote lists the survey and borescope check, the system and its thickness, making good around windows and doors, ventilation works, and disposal.
Cavity fill in West Parley is drilled and injected from outside, off a ladder or tower on a bungalow, and should be done by a registered installer who issues a CIGA certificate. Internal lining with insulated plasterboard is done room by room, with floors sheeted and furniture moved. Waste leaves with us and each room is cleaned before we move on. If we find damp, a bridged cavity or a failed wall tie, you get a photograph and a price before we go further.
Insulating inside is not development, as Planning Portal guidance on insulation confirms. Cladding the outside can need permission, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls explains when. The addresses to check are in the small conservation area around the old church and the four listed entries, using Dorset Council's listed building pages. Under regulation 23 a renovated wall has to reach the Part L standard in Approved Document L, and building control look at the U-value and ventilation together.
Cost
Cavity or solid, and what happens at the windows
The wall area is the easy part. What costs time is every window, door and floor junction. Which wall you have. A clear, dry cavity can be filled quickly. A solid wall, found in the few older buildings in West Parley, cannot be filled and has to be lined inside or clad outside. The borescope settles it, and no honest quote comes before that.
Access. A detached bungalow with a garage joined on is drilled from a ladder or tower. A chalet with rooms in the roof has gables that need scaffold, and the HSE rules on height work set the platform. Internal lining is done from inside, room by room.
The junctions. Window and door reveals, the floor edge, the eaves and any party wall are where heat escapes and where condensation shows if the detail is wrong. That is slow work, and cheaper quotes often leave it out.
Ask any other quote whether they have checked the cavity with a borescope, what system and thickness they will use, how they will handle reveals and floor junctions, and who makes good the plaster and decoration.
If damp has appeared
Damp or mould after cavity fill
Damp patches or black mould on an outside wall after cavity fill or internal lining usually comes back to the fill or to a cold junction. Water is crossing the cavity through the fill, or warm air is reaching a cold spot at a junction and condensing.
Note where the damp is and when it started. Ring us; the form is slower. On the first visit we look before anything is taken out, because the fix depends on the cause, and we may use the borescope or check the ventilation. We work to a Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm schedule. If it cannot wait, ring, and if nobody answers we will get back to you as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
A bungalow has more wall per room than anything else
Set a house and a bungalow side by side with identical floor areas. The bungalow puts that floor on one level, so a far longer outside wall has to be wrapped round it, and every metre of that wall leaks heat all winter. The roof and ceiling are usually still the largest loss on a bungalow, but the walls are a larger share here than on a two storey house, so they are worth a look.
The shape helps a second time over. Everything sits within reach of a tower, so no scaffold stands for weeks and the access line stays small, which matters most where external work is involved.
Where the shape stops helping is at the roof edge. Bungalows put up here after the war got a shallow overhang, and adding a hundred millimetres to the wall face means extending it. Leave it as it is and the water comes off the tiles straight down the face of your new render.
Who you are dealing with
Wall insulation from a firm you can look up
West Parley is about 4.5 miles from our Boscombe base. We cover the village, Parley Cross, the Christchurch Road side and the BH22 addresses around them, and Dorset Council deals with planning and building control. The business is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales with company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in West Parley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Thomas Hannen owns it, does the borescope check and prices the work in person. Checkatrade lists a 10 out of 10 from a verified customer. The site visit is free and the written quote, with each item set out, costs nothing.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in West Parley?
Most repairs in West Parley 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 Parley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for West Parley. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: West Parley Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around West Parley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers West Parley. |
Questions
Questions about wall insulation in West Parley
Why would the walls matter more on a single storey house?
The wall is longer for the same floor area. Heat loss through the walls is therefore a bigger share of the total than in a two storey house of matching size.
Does a bungalow need a platform for the drilling?
A tower reaches everything, so no scaffold for a cavity fill. External wall insulation is different: the whole elevation gets worked at once, and it is priced on its own line.
Will external insulation fit under my eaves?
Only where the overhang is deep enough, and on most post-war bungalows in this village it is not. Extending the eaves forms part of the work, and a quote that ignores it has a line missing.
How much internal depth does a lining take in a low room?
Somewhere between about twenty five and a hundred millimetres, according to the board chosen. We measure the room first and pick the build up around it, rather than the reverse.
Can the walls and a re-render be done together?
That is the sensible moment for it. With the render coming off anyway, the access and the making good are already accounted for, so an external system works out far lighter than doing it on its own.
Nearby, and next door
Wall insulation near West Parley
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Free quote
Get the walls looked at before the render goes on
Thomas comes out, scopes the cavity, measures the eaves and prices inside and outside options in writing. The visit and the quote are free.