Wall insulation in Yarmouth
A bungalow has more external wall for each room than any other house, so the junctions round it decide whether the work is worth doing.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
More than a third of the homes around Yarmouth are bungalows, and a bungalow has more external wall per room than any other shape of house. Everything you do to a wall counts for more here, and so does everything you leave out, because the eaves run right round at head height and the reveals are wide.
The calls are a single storey rear room that never warms up, a corner where black mould comes back every winter, and older cottages in the town with solid walls and nothing to fill.
We measure the wall at a reveal, look at the bond, and put a borescope through one small hole wherever there is a cavity to see into. Then the wall, the junctions and the making good go on the written itemised quote as separate lines. Both the visit and the quote are free.
The work
Long low walls, wide reveals and a low eaves
Why a bungalow is different. The same floor area spread over one storey gives you a longer run of external wall and far more junction per room. The eaves detail runs the whole way round at low level, the wall plate sits just above the ceiling, and the reveals on the wide picture windows most of these houses have are a large part of the elevation. Get the junctions right and a bungalow rewards wall work; skip them and it does not.
Cavity fill. A clear, dry cavity of decent width is filled from outside through a drilled pattern with bonded bead or blown mineral wool and made good in matched mortar. On a single storey house the whole elevation is reachable off a tower rather than a scaffold, which keeps the access straightforward. We do not offer a guarantee scheme of our own; a cavity fill is normally installed under an independent one, so ask whoever drills the wall which scheme covers it.
What rules a fill out. A wet cavity, wall ties bridged with mortar, an outer leaf with open joints or blown render, or an elevation badly exposed to driving rain. Those get repaired first, and sometimes the answer is to leave the cavity clear and line the wall inside instead.
A failed or slumped fill. Old material drops, leaving the head of the wall empty and a wet mass at the bottom. On a bungalow that empty band is right where the wall meets the roof, which is the coldest part of the building. Extraction comes out through the lowest course and the cavity is cleaned before anything new goes in.
Solid walls in the town. Nine inch brick and stone with nothing inside. 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 and leaves the rooms their size.
The reveals, which are half the job here. A wide window in a low wall means a lot of reveal, and an untreated reveal is a cold bridge running right round the opening. Reveals take a thin board, or aerogel where the frame leaves no room. The threshold and the floor junction get returned properly, and joist ends in a solid wall keep air around them.
Ventilation, and the eaves. Insulating raises the inside surface above the dew point and stops the condensation forming, provided the moisture can still leave: trickle vents, a working extract fan and clear air bricks. Approved Document F sets the ventilation and BS 5250 covers interstitial moisture. At the eaves, the wall insulation has to meet the loft insulation without blocking the ventilation path above it.
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.
Isle of Wight Council is the planning authority and building control. Insulating on the inside is not development, which the guidance on insulation confirms, while cladding or rendering the outside is covered by what the rules say about cladding a wall. The old town has a good many listed entries, and on a listed building consent is needed for internal lining as well as anything external. regulation 23 is the one people miss: renovate more than half of a wall and the whole of it is expected to reach the Part L standard in Approved Document 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 clear access all round, a chalet bungalow with rooms in the roof and a town cottage on a narrow street are three different jobs. 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. Mould that comes back in the same corner every winter is worth photographing before we come, because it tells us which junction is cold. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
A bungalow gives you more wall for your money
Take two houses with the same floor area, one on two storeys and one on one. The bungalow has roughly twice the roof and a longer perimeter, so its external wall does more work per room. That is the reason wall insulation tends to be a better proposition here than it would be on a terrace of the same size: you are treating a bigger share of the total heat loss.
The catch is that the same shape gives you more junction. The eaves run round the whole building at low level and sit close to the ceiling, so the wall and the loft have to be dealt with as one detail rather than two trades. Where a lining stops at the ceiling and the loft insulation stops at the wall plate, there is a cold gap between them, and that is where the mould turns up.
The wide windows are the other half of it. On many of these houses the openings take up most of the wall, so the reveals and the threshold are not a detail, they are a substantial part of the surface. Any quote that prices a wall area and says nothing about the reveals has left out the part that decides whether it works.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Yarmouth, Thorley, Bouldnor and the roads out along the Solent shore, broadly PO41, under Isle of Wight 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
Yarmouth questions we get asked
Is wall insulation worth more on a bungalow?
Usually yes, because there is more external wall for each room inside it. The same argument applies to the roof, which is why we look at the two together rather than selling you one.
What happens where the wall meets the loft?
That junction has to be closed without blocking the ventilation path at the eaves. Done properly it is a few hours; left alone it is a cold ring round the whole house and the first place mould shows.
Is a tower enough to drill a bungalow, or does it want scaffold?
Rarely. Most of a bungalow is reachable off a tower, which keeps the access simple and quick. Anything at height still follows the same rules as a two storey job.
Our picture window has almost no reveal. Can it still be insulated?
Yes, with a thin board or aerogel, which gives useful performance in very little thickness. It costs more per square metre and it is worth it, because the reveal is where the cold gets in.
Will lining the walls make the rooms feel small?
It takes width, and in a bungalow with narrow rooms that is worth thinking about before you start. We measure the rooms and tell you what you will lose before you commit to anything.
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Get the wall and the eaves looked at together
Thomas comes out, checks the cavity and the junction where the wall meets the roof, then prices it in writing. The visit and the quote are free.