I’ve started a blog which documents my issues with cavity wall insulation. It’s an absolutely thrilling story of corruption , gross negligence and prosaic building regs.
A good starting point is this one about how a chopstick was more useful than £1000 worth of damp surveyors and the Cavity wall mafia(CIGA)'s ‘inspector’.
I have a friend would would feel your pain with cavity walls in general - he came home to find the cavity wall people trying to scrape a whole sack full of slightly sticky polystyrene balls off of his MG/motorbike and everything else stored in the garage when they drilled too far through the wall and then started the machine on full power…
Courty
Did the garage even have a cavity?
Industry has very poor record regarding adequate pre survey.
My mother has had surveyors come around three times over the years about cavity wall insulation. The first time the surveyor arranged work to be done on her cavity wall (it’s an end terrace) and the workmen showed up a week later and said they couldn’t do it because they couldn’t get a ladder against the side of the house due to a boundary wall at the edge of the property limiting the available room. A few years later this same performance was repeated.
A couple of years ago another surveyor came around again and my mother explained to him that twice workmen had come to do the insulation and not been able to manage because of the proximity of the boundary wall. He said he understood and assured her that it would not be a problem this time and arranged for work to be done. So some workmen arrived again and this time…they said that they would have to forget about doing it because the proximity of the boundary wall meant they could not get their ladders against the house.
Although in light of this information it is just as well and I will advise her that if they ever come knocking around again she tells them where to go, just on the off chance they can actually do the work.
were these surveyors cold callers? If so then that should set off alarm bells immediately regardless of the product.
If they use phrases such as ‘government backed’ and 25 year guarantee. It’s basically bollicks.
The first thing to check is where you are on the wind driven rain map: You should never fully fill a cavity in an area of severe wind driven rain.
If you look at the map on this page
http://www.silverspray.co.uk/2012/02/27/winter-driving-rain-may-increase/
e.g Most of wales is in zone 4 and despite this large parts of the country has had CWI pushed onto vulnerable pensioners by shoddy characters who have bullied and mislead thousands of pensioners into having ‘free installation’ (which was actually a grant offset by energy bills savings) and leaving them to recoup the cost of repairing interior walls that are saturated with damp because the installer has gone bust and the 25 year guarantee company CIGA is run by people who are all directors of CWI companies who will never admit a problem with CWI is their fault because of their conflict of interest.
To add insult to injury, the very people who’s negligent installation companies went into liquidation are now setting up CWI removal businesses so that they cash in twice.
Cavity walls were originally put in costal areas as a way of keeping driven rain out. That was their main purpose. and were used over 100 years ago by people who understood buildings, used vapour permeable materials high in lime which allowed both cavities and external walls to transfer moisture out efficiently.
Modern new build cavity walls have insulation boards in the cavity stuck to the internal wall but will usually have a 50mm air gap to avoid bridging. Retrofit CWI is sprayed in filling the cavity which always poses a danger of water bridging to the inside and it’s seldom installed correctly which means voids and slumps in the insulation can cause cold spots internally which attract condensation and black mold.
In my opinion the modest benefits of (potentially) a few 100 quid a year off your energy bill look pretty moot when you see the £1000s of damage which can be caused by even a product that’s installed to industry ‘best practice’.
Upgrading your boiler, buying a thick curtain and wearing an extra jumper is a lot less risky!
I don’t believe they were cold callers. It was part of a scheme she had signed up to in the middle of the last decade following some bad advice because it was all the rage in the noughties. I think even charities that worked with the elderly had schemes for facilitating the installation of CWI in the homes of pensioners. But the last surveying attempt was just a few years ago in this decade. It won’t be happening again though. My mother’s house is in the sheltered area of the country (zone 1).
Yes. Unfortunately the government made it a key part of their strategy to lower carbon emissions ‘each home counts’ and pushed aggressive quotas to energy providers through ofgem and as a result, CWI regularly appears on local authorities and charities web sites as the best thing for poor cold old people.
However when things go wrong, it’s seen as a 3rd party dispute and no government agency offers any assistance to the vulnerable and all roads lead to CIGA.
One google review of CIGA sums it up nicely:
"Only get involved with the Green Deals and cavity wall insulation being promoted by your local council if you have the following in place;
a bottomless bank account, a brilliant and clever lawyer, no family to support, no responsibilities or heavy work commitments and a supportive and honest local and borough council, MP and police service.
Why?
You will need to have all of the above in place in order to survive the appalling and inhumane way that you will be treated if/ when things go wrong with your cavity walls."
Yet another example of “they don’t really care about us”.
The whole sorry system is totally corrupt and murderous.
When will people realise that we need to build community so we can do away with government?