the Energy Saving Trust are going round our street at the moment offering cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and radiator reflectors free of charge.

I’m booked in for the 18th, but my neighbour had it done yesterday. Their walls look like swiss cheese. 6 inch holes are bored out of the walls for the suction pipe and they drill 1 inch holes all round to blow out the old insulation and to pipe the new stuff in, they’ve then placed the remainer of the the wall from the 6 inch hole back in the wall and left the 1 inch holes open.

I haven’t spoken to the neighbour about whether they’re having the holes filled in, but it looks bloody awful. I’m just wondering if this is the normal method of doing this? Probably being a bit ungrateful as it’s being done for nothing but i’m thinking of cancelling the work due to the mess the house now looks.

Suck the old insulation out, good luck with that, sounds like a recipe for uneven fill possibly resulting in condensation problems from the resulting cold patches. There’s a reason houses have cavities and it’s not so you can fill them full of insulation.

That sounds like the correct technique for removing it, as we had done 6 months ago.

I went for the loft insulation and it’s made a hell of a difference. Went from 70 mm to 270mm. Wouldn’t touch cavity wall insulation. Cavity is there for a reason. Heard too many horror stories about condensation and damp walls to risk it.

Afraid I agree with Inbred – condensation and damp problems much worse since the cavity wall insulation was doe – house is warmer though, tbh

All good here, had both done by the council, they did drill holes all around the house, but filled them after and we painted over then, wouldn’t notice them unless you were really looking.
No condensation issues at all and house heats up quicker, stays much warmer than before.

I thought that I should look into getting cavity wall insulation done, but when I actually looked at the house it as covered in small spots of mortar, where I am guessing some kind of cavity wall insulation was injected previously.

But, the house doesn’t seem to be very well insulated so I was wondering if there’s anyway we can get the house checked to see if we actually do have cavity wall insulation.
We’ve put loads of loft insulation in, so if we do have cavity wall insulation and this can’t be improved I wonder if we should look at some kind of external insulation covering at some point.

Cavity wall insulation has vastly improved the warmth of both the houses we’ve had it done to.

No condensation or damp problems either.

Condensation/damp is not caused by cavity wall insulation!
If done correctly

We had ours done prior to up dating the old silca loft insulation. It made a big difference.
Lots of holes though, that were filled. Though our house is rendered and painted white so the whole lot needed touching up.

thegreatape who did you get to remove it?

Had the Energy Saving Trust types do our cavity insulation earlier this year after a very cold 11-12 winter. It’s made a massive difference to our 1950’s ex council house been nice n toasty this winter in comparison.

Not heard of removing old cavity insulation though, 6″ holes, that sounds mental. If your house is brick, how’re they going to make good after that?

Cavity is there for a reason.

Only because at the time it was the best they knew for insulation. All modern houses now have an insulation layer in the cavity gap eg Celotex or similar.

Only because at the time it was the best they knew for insulation. All modern houses now have an insulation layer in the cavity gap eg Celotex or similar.

Um, not really.

They were built that way to prevent water making its way inside through the masonry. Insulation was an added benefit.

Stumpy – possibly wall ties replaced at some point in the past as opposed to wall insulation. Not sure best way to check for insulation, possibly remove a window cill and have a gander down the cavity.

avdave it was ILM Highland who are based in Alness.

Cavity is there for a reason.

People often say that.

But more often than not, they don’t know what that reason is.

And if they think they do know, the actual reason is not what they think it is 🙂

So enlighten us.

The cavity was originally designed to prevent moisture ingress from outer leaf to inner leaf, main problem with early cavities was “tieing” the two leafs together. Insulation started to be added in the 70’s I think. It was basically a bonus to be able to add insulation.

how’re they going to make good after that?

That’s exactly what troubles me, looks bloody horrendous and we’re not in much of a financial position to take on building work

You used to have the cavity to prevent the transfer of water which would come about due to workmanship or porosity of brickwork. Even now there are still a lot of bricks that don’t advise on the use of full full cavity. Building regs also states that pointing finish comes into affect depending on the area but its not always taken into account when you look at the recessed or bucket handle finish that’s commonly seen. Building Control are normally happy with a full full insulation if the insulation manufacturers BBA certs cover it. Most of the dampness issues I have come across in the past have all been workmanship issues of some kind.
I wouldn’t be happy if some company came around putting 100mm core drilled sections all over my house. Why can’t the scour a brick out. Render will look like a patch up job either way unless its redone. Just had my house done with a fibrous type of insulation which say all the good things but I need to touch up the pointing in places so I don’t get issues. A product I came across recently is Icynene and I’m quite impressed by it.