Blown Cavity Wall Insulation - BBC news today.

[ree]

FWIW: I've previously posted about the vast, hundreds of thousands of scam installations, that has been the Govt. funded CWI installation scheme.

Not only do these companies specialise in rip-off's but they cause further property damage with their fooling around.

Today the internet BBC news featured a single mom with two children trapped in a damp ridden house where she had apparently paid towards CWI installation that failed. After complaints the installers went bust.
She then took out a loan of £7000 to have it removed. The next company made things worse by failing to remove all of it.

She is now trapped, in debt, in a dangerously unhealthy house. So are the children. The children have become sick.
The so called authorities & guarantors bailed out of responsibility.

I found out, to my surprise, that there are companies that do nothing but "secure funding for CWI" - these companies take great chunks of the funding. They deal in thin air playing on some people's vulnerabilities. There's no need for them. No need to "secure funding".
Citizens Advice gives far better advice for free.

 

[^woody^]

There is no indication that the CWI failed, or was actually the problem for subsequent mould.

She was badly advised about removal and paying for it.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

We had the stuff at our previous house (installed for us), and already installed at our current house. Both old houses, both with a few minor brickwork issues here and there.

Both have been absolutely fine, and we've been vastly warmer as a result of it.

There are damp, mouldy houses all over the country. Some have cavity wall insulation, many don't. The BBC should be doing proper journalism and investigating whether there's an actual issue rather than spreading stupid theories.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Link to the Beeb article...

Insulation scandal: 'I have to scrape mould off the walls'

The BBC can reveal insulation fitted under government schemes could have failed in hundreds of thousands of homes.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[mrrusty]

spot the bay window cracking away......

 

[Nige F]

Our bungalow has it - and kitchen hob extract to outside, plus bathroom extract to outside. Neighbor has insulation too - no extractors . Guess which one has mould Caped Crusaders to the rescue. m a g a

 

[aveatry]

So is it the fault of the insulation or not. And can it cause the issue. I'm thinking about landlords and the push to get all properties to a "C" rating otherwise they can not be rented.

 

[mrrusty]

So is it the fault of the insulation or not

Not an easy question to answer. The history of cavity walls is that originally they were introduced as a means of keeping the inner skin of the house dry and separate from any penetrating damp, so that joist ends didn't rot out, decoration didn't degrade etc. Early cavities were usually ventilated. Over time, they have become part of the houses insulation, but we still have weep vents, drip points on cavity ties and trays above openings - all to deal with potential liquid water in the cavity.

CWI I'm sure done correctly, with appropriate materials is beneficial, just as full-fill insulation is on new builds. But there is also potential for problems when a cavity that was designed to be open is then subsequently filled. It changes the dynamics of the house, and I'm not surprised that sometimes it causes problems. Our good friends had CWI on a 1930's house and they have subsequently had some issues that were not there before, which I suspect is because of wet insulation.

 

[aveatry]

Thanks rusty. Is the blown stuff polystyrene balls or like an expanding foam, it its foam I would of thought that was waterproof so how can a wet outer wall transfer to the inside thought the waterproof foam

 

[mrrusty]

I'm no expert on all the different types of CWI! - however, I've seen fibres, EPS balls and a sort of expanding foam. My own opinion FWIW is that if there are air bricks ventilating the cavity, I would not consider CWI. If these are not visible then maybe - Personally I prefer the idea of external and internal insulation, and leave any cavity alone. But that's just an opinion.

 

[aveatry]

My house about 1959 built has a cavity and has a foam inside but there are no signs of holes anywhere it looks like a sort of expanding foam as in some joist space I can see where it has squirmed out through small holes. We have no damp issues at all. But to be fair from various extensions we do not have much in the way of original external walls left.
We have air bricks but that is for air flow to a timber suspended floor. A couple of houses in my area have had something injected a few years ago so it seems that not all houses have what I have got and I have been here many years so not sure what it is or when it was done.

 

[stuart45]

The property is in Swansea, an area of really severe wind driven rain issues, so CWI isn't recommended for these areas.
Poor installation leaving voids also caused issues.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Looks more like condensation as it's in a corner where there's lower airflow and temperature.

The BBC is just tabloid trash these days. Someone should send their article to their in-house "BBC Verify" unit to check whether it's fake news. There's absolutely no evidence of anything, just someone thinks it's the problem.

 

[ree]

Ofgem, not the BBC, provided the figures for hundreds of thousands CWI failures.

Within weeks of the installation "water was constantly running down walls".
This was a news item so, usually, no technical details would have been included.

However:
Perhaps you think that "water down the walls" within weeks of installation was a coincidence?
Perhaps you also think the installer going bust after complaints were made was also a coincidence?
Perhaps you think that the guarantor denying that they were the guarantors was also a coincidence?
Perhaps the above indicates a failed installation?
Failed CWI's typically lead to the conditions, such as mould, described in the news.

David Walton, a building surveyor, who has been inspecting insulated homes all over the UK for more than 25 yrs, visited & said the installation had been "botched" & the extraction hadn't been done properly either.

 

[^woody^]

So, this is a "botched" job, not an endemic issue with CWI?

Note: there are lots of "botched" building jobs done daily, for lots of reasons, but I don't see these on the BBC news site or headlines that there are industry problems with say, tarmaced drives, skim plaster, mitred worktops, leaking shower silicone, dripping gutters ......

Note 2: there are significantly more successful, properly done CWI jobs than not. So again, where is the endemic problem with CWI?