Brown Slime in Attic

Chet T16

Our house survey indicated a bit of damp that needed to be investigated in the kitchen. I got into the attic today and upon lifting the insulation (and the fag butts it contained :rolleyes:) i found some brown slimey substance. Its fairly wet and oily and smells a bit like creosote or something.

Any ideas what it could be or where it could be coming from? Or who to call to look at it?

Pic:

teepee

Its a build up of condensation / moister between the foil back plaster board and the fiberglass insulation .
you have build up of moister there and its not able to escape so its decaying the fiber glass and brown is a elements of the rotting .

sydthebeat

you have inadequate ventilation blowing through your attic.

check to see if there are vent grills on your eaves... and then check to see if these have been blocked by insulation pushed down into them

Chet T16

sydthebeat wrote: »

you have inadequate ventilation blowing through your attic.

check to see if there are vent grills on your eaves... and then check to see if these have been blocked by insulation pushed down into them

There are vents all along the eaves, i will check for blockages.

Should i dump the insulation and let it dry out or would leaving it uninsulated do more harm than good?

teepee

It also could be the roof leaking and water is trapped between the installation and foil back .,
Yes its the dump for the wet insulation , dry time and re-insulated with new .

Chet T16

The roof appeared fine. I'll lift the insulation which will hopefully give me a better idea of what is the cause

moy83

Would there be a chimney around that area ? The colour is like soot when its leaking through aswell .

teepee

moy83 wrote: »

Would there be a chimney around that area ? The colour is like soot when its leaking through aswell .

If it was soot a leaking ceiling would be the least of your problems , The chimney would have to be cracked through the 25mm flue linner through the sand mix 75/100mm around the flue linner through the 100mm external block through the external plaster render . The flue linner would have to be flooded in order for this amount of black water ingress to enter the internal space of the attic . And if your chimneys flue linner is flooded good luck with that .

Chet T16

I got a chance to get back in the attic today and pulled out the insulation with a decent bit of light. I'm pretty much convinced that its some oil or something that was spilled or leaked out of something before we were here.

The damp in question was around a downlighter between the adjoining joists, whatever this is made its way under the joist and around/into the plaster board at the downlighter.