Cavity wall

On TV last evening they were putting forward a plan where houses, which do not have cavity wall insulation, have their walls insulated for a modest fee and then receive a discount on community charge. I live in a Victorian terrace house where the cavity walls were part of the ventilation system via pierced ceiling roses, floor spaces and air-bricks (it took me ages to work this out) However, since I no longer have coal fires could I have the wall filling done without creating a problem? Oh and while I think - the foundations are large sandstone blocks on which the house sits - would such filling encourage rising damp?

Reply to
Jim Scott
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I presume you mean Cocil Tax and not Community Charge .The latter dies years ago. Is this plan just a suggestion or does it exist . If you are a home owner and over 60 you can get Cavity Wall Insulation etc under the Warm Deal Scheme if you also get certain benefits like Council Tax Benefit.

Stuart

Reply to
Stuart

Whatever.

Proposed.

Not eligible for that, but this plan is their sop to global warming so

*anyone* without cavity in-fill can get it. Only some authorities are opting in, but it seems to be the majority. We pay for the work (~£120) then they reduce the 'whatever' by £100 p.a. plus we save on heating bills. And of course save the planet.
Reply to
Jim Scott

A friend bought a 1973 house. It has a loft conversion and not one piece of insulation. An old cast iron boiler. The voids all around the conversion were easy to walk around once into the voids by removing a hatch of plaster board. Even the roof was too. He spent all day insulating the lot. Cavity wall insulation was fitted, and some new windows here and there. Then a new condensing boiler and thermal store too with TRVs on all rads. His bills are 60% less, and he is delighted. The cavity wall insulation has meant a very cosy house with few cold spots around. The house retains its heat for a hell of a long time. At -1C he had the heating off for 4 hours and the place never felt cold. He intends on getting sealed more secure front door and eliminating the copper overflow pipes from toilets, with new overflow in bowl siphons. This should make matters even better

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

The problem with many cavity wall filling contractors is that they are cowboys. Many don't fill under windows and other spots. Best to by an infra-red thermometer, put heating on full and point at the walls at various places. The temp difference will show the gaps. This can be done as they are fitting it. Polystyrene balls are the best as they also form an air seal. The balls are glued together.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

Yet those who have already fitted cavity wall insulation, paid for by themselves, pay the full amount of council tax?

Sounds like a really effective way to piss off a lot of people.

Reply to
Matt

But if the exterior walls are colder, will they attract more condensation and moss?

- As appears to be hapenning on one house I know of.

Reply to
Michael Chare

Just like any Sale where there is always the problem of the last person to pay the full price before the Sale starts ...

Reply to
John Cartmell

I presume this a one-off discount rather than a continuing discount?

Chance would be a fine thing to get it done. I've been trying since Sept

05 - been through two companies and two local authority-backed schemes none of them have bothered to survey my property

And one of the LA schemes suddenly went from wanting £125 to £270

The whole insulation lark feels like one big scam. It is a good and worthy idea but hopelessly managed

Will I manage to get insulated by next winter? Not holding my breath.

Reply to
DMac

No I don't think so. Also, it was proposed by British Gas, but you don't seem to have to be a customer of theirs.

Reply to
Jim Scott

Sorry the last reply should have been snipped like this to make sense :o?

Reply to
Jim Scott

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:48:05 GMT someone who may be "DMac" wrote this:-

The British Gas scheme is not the cheapest. However, they are reasonably efficient in this part of the world.

Reply to
David Hansen

Doctor Drivel wrote:

Having worked as a cavity wall insulator for a long time I can say that this is not the case...decades ago (in the 70's) when CWI was first invented, the materials and machinery were cheap, people could set up in buisness and do it at weekends given that the chemicals used were water based and left a sort of soft expanding foam type of insulation in the cavity, if it was done properly it worked a treat, but many pikeys and other cowboys jumped on the bandwagon and CWI never really recovered until the mid eighties when fibreglass was used, prior to this (but after the water/foam fiasco) polystyrene beads were used but with the drawback that every hole made in the brickwor at a later date for water pipes, cables etc, would see masses of it disappearing over the horizon never to return, plus it never breaks down and demolition work became a disaster with clouds of the stuff bilowing around towns and cities for months afterwards....glues were tried, mainly a form of wallpaper paste wich was blown onto the balls as they were being delivered into the wall, but again this failed because operators had trouble keeping the 'paste' flowing in cold weather, and so most operators now blow in fibreglass which is treated with silicone for waterproofing, and it breaks down on contact with soil making it eco freindly. As far as not filling in under windows etc is concerned, all CWI installers undergo rigourous checking and any not up to standard don't get to join the govt scheme, those that do (almost all of them) enjoy an endless supply of work and obviously cash, anyone found not doing the job properly is sacked and they lose their 'card' meaning that they can't go down the road to the next firm and start all over again.

Reply to
Phil L

Water cannot rise up the fibreglass, it's not like the fibreglass in your loft, it's treated with a silicone based chemical during manufacture. You can do away with most if not all of your airbricks and the CWI installers will do this when they arrive, obviously gas vents, roof vents and underfloor vents will fill with insulation and these will have to be removed, cleared of infill, sleeved around and new vents fitted, this is part of the job. Even with coal fires or any other type of heating you can still have CWI fitted, all CWI installers have to sit a course on ventilation, combustion and learn all about carbon monoxide before they are set loose, if you have any gas appliances, these will be tested before and after installation (before to make sure they're OK (and if they are not the job won't get done until they are), and afterwards to make sure they are functioning as they were before, it's the law!)

Reply to
Phil L

Can it jump the cavity and cause damp patches?

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

Water can't jump :-p It cannot penetrate from the source of moisture to the dry of the interior, when I went to the factory where it was made, they had a 'wet wall' set up, the exteriror was brick, with a 50mm cavity filled with blown wool, the interior was thermalite block - the bricks had water being sprayed onto them and the bricks themselves were green with slime and algy, obviously drenched through, (like when a gutter leaks for a long time in one spot), the interior was dusty and dry. When water penetrates exterior brickwork, it runs down the back of the brick and down into the footings (this is why brick ties have a twist in the centre, or a bump, to cause moisture to drip down and not get to the interior wall)

The only time it can cause damp patches is when a wall is not filled to the very top, which is why no CWI company will do part of a house, we very often got calls from folk, "I just want the back doing, my bedroom's freezing" etc and they were always told the same thing, 'we do it all or none', because just doing one elevation is not really possible, given that the cavity goes all around the house, the insulation will blow around corners, meaning that the side wall will be partially filled...the water mentioned above which runs down the brickwork during heavy rain can then hit the top of the insulation and run across to the inside blockwork.

To prevent ingress into next door's cavity (in a pair of semi's or terraced properties) a barrier is installed, this is just like a brush bottle cleaner type of thing which is around 8 metres long and four inces wide, the bristles are pliable nylon. A hole is drilled at the very top and one at the very bottom in line with the centre wall, a chain is dropped down and pulled through the bottom hole, the brush is attachd to this chain and pulled through, once in place the chain is disconnected leaving the brush in the wall, with it being four inches and compressed into 2 inches, it prevents any fibre getting tinto next door's walls, this /could/ be used to do one elevation on a house, IE put it up both sides but it's a PITA and CWI companies don't want to know.

Reply to
Phil L

The message from "Doctor Drivel" contains these words:

Isn't this why some parts of the country (there's a map somewhere) have to have a gap between the insulation and the outer leaf and others don't?

Reply to
Guy King

Reply to
Chippy Roy

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