House Insullation

Mullie

Has anyone else got a severe problem with insullation in their house?
I live in Charlesland Court and lose massive amounts of heat at the front of the house. On windy days I experience huge drafts...
- around the heating control panel in the hall
- through the electrical box in the hall
- at the sides of the front door
- at the bottom of the skirting boards in the living room
- at the sides of the fireplace
- around door surrounds that have split from the wall
Its terrible! I've tried all types of fillers, but I patch one place and the wind comes in somewhere else!
Anyway, the front wall on the house is a cavity wall and the cavity is hollow. Should this have been filled during construction? I climbed into the attic and crawled to the wall, I can see all the way down to ground level. Did they just forget to do it in our house!?
I'd appreciate if people could check if theirs is the same or has been insullated?
Thanks!

Charlie-Bravo

Standard masonry construction would have a cavity of about 110mm with 65mm insulation fixed to the inner leaf wall. The idea is that damp doesn't migrate across through contact with the external leaf.

The vents are your main place to start...

What I have found is that the vent points to the rooms, i.e. living room, bedrooms, etc, are too big. Building regs say you need at least 6,500 sq.mm - thats say a square of 80mm x 80mm. All your vents would be significantly bigger than this minimum requirement. This is where you really need to check your vent sizes.

In your living room you will have two vents for your Gas fire. Now, the installation instructions for the gas fire will say you need at least 100mm x 100mm of vent. In this case its better to have two vents, one high and one low to adquately vent the room and reduce the possible of carbon monoxcide build up.

For all your rooms, you can check how big your vents are. What I found in my own home was that the vents managed to vent the back of the drylining resulting in drafts at skirting level and anywhere else there was a socket or switch. To stop the problem, I removed the vent louvres from the wall and filled around the vent ducting stopping air from travelling behind the drylining but keeping ventilation to the room through the grill/louvre. I used 'no more big gaps' expanding foam. The drafts have reduced significantly and the place is much more cosy.

RosieJoe

astrofluff wrote: »

Standard masonry construction would have a cavity of about 110mm with 65mm insulation fixed to the inner leaf wall. The idea is that damp doesn't migrate across through contact with the external leaf.

The vents are your main place to start...

What I have found is that the vent points to the rooms, i.e. living room, bedrooms, etc, are too big. Building regs say you need at least 6,500 sq.mm - thats say a square of 80mm x 80mm. All your vents would be significantly bigger than this minimum requirement. This is where you really need to check your vent sizes.

In your living room you will have two vents for your Gas fire. Now, the installation instructions for the gas fire will say you need at least 100mm x 100mm of vent. In this case its better to have two vents, one high and one low to adquately vent the room and reduce the possible of carbon monoxcide build up.

For all your rooms, you can check how big your vents are. What I found in my own home was that the vents managed to vent the back of the drylining resulting in drafts at skirting level and anywhere else there was a socket or switch. To stop the problem, I removed the vent louvres from the wall and filled around the vent ducting stopping air from travelling behind the drylining but keeping ventilation to the room through the grill/louvre. I used 'no more big gaps' expanding foam. The drafts have reduced significantly and the place is much more cosy.

Fair play Astro, probably the best thread reply I have read in this forum in awhile.

Mind you, your sig gives an indication of your knowledge

dr ro

i did exactly the same thing with the living room vents. I also found there was no seal at the bottom of the front door frame where gusts would come from. And the esb gas and telecom boxes outside were not sealed so air was flowing inside the outer brick work. No more gaps foam is your man.

Mullie

Cheers for the replies folks. No More Gaps it is.