Cavity Wall filling recommendations?

CGI_3

Hope this is the right place for this:

10 year old house. 100mm cavity. 50mm aeroboard in place. Driving rain not going to be an issue.

3 SEAI listed contractors have proposed filling the remaining cavity with bonded beads.

My questions are:

Are there alternatives to beads???

Is one type of bead going to be significantly better than the other, or are they all more or less the same? Samples of the beads from all the suppliers so far all look to be the same despite different trade names. Spec sheets SEEM to be the same also.

Any suggestions as to any other considerations?!

Carlow52

In relation to pumping the cavity in a 10yr old house with aeroboard in the cavity I would have concerns about the quality of the build in the cavity and its ability to allow a full fill.

I cannot comment on the quality of the beads.

My concern always has been with beads and the spray foam is that you have zero independent assurance that the material used is what it is supposed to be.

For example in the spray foam end, how can you know you got open cell if that's what you paid for?

When it comes to insulation work I see can I apply the WYSIWYG principle

My concern here is that you cannot: instead its WYGYCS

WYSIWYG is an acronym for what you see is what you get.

What other verifiable options have you considered?

CGI_3

There's about 100 houses in the estate where I am. Any house to date that's been cavity filled has been with the beads.

I know myself from working on the house, (drilling holes for tumble dryer, outside tap, etc,) that the gap left really isn't 50mm. Even with the best workmanship in the world the best you are probably going to get is 40 anyway I'd say. The average I'd imagine is probably 35 and I'd say most houses of my vintage in this country would be the same. (I know in my sisters house that the aero board was 'inserted' in the cavity. May as well not have been there at all!

The beads (to me anyway) seem a bit on the big side to be able to flow to fill the voids. I reckon the average bead size on the samples I was given to be about 5mm, but there's a huge variation.

What ever happened to the smaller beads, the ones if you opened up a house filled with them from 20 years ago would just flow out through any say 1 inch sized hole you made? The smaller beads just give me more confidence of complete fill.

What are the other options available for filling?

A liquid that solidifies sounds like a good idea, but when you research this there seems to be question marks about it shrinking eventually to rattle around in the cavity.

Then there's cellulose. I just can't visualise that, especially on a 40mm gap.

Likewise with fibre (I'm assuming fibre glass?). Will it fill? Will it absorb moisture and loose its properties?

sas

CGI_3 wrote: »

Then there's cellulose. I just can't visualise that, especially on a 40mm gap.

Cellulose is not suitable for a cavity pump. If someone is trying to sell you this for this application run as fast as you can way from them.