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New member - stuck for what to do next to warm the house


Sparrowhawk

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On 06/07/2023 at 07:41, Dave Jones said:

the spray mist aerogell stuff on old housing stock could be a game changer


Not so sure about game changing for ‘old stock’ because as they say, it doesn’t fill holes it seals leaks so holes would have to be found and filled first but thanks for sharing that video, the first I’ve ever seen or heard of such a system, a brilliant idea. 

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I took off a wooden cavity closer by the bay this morning. Turns out it's not just the bricks in the bay that are soft it's the whole wall. Think the render is holding the wall up!

 

A generous gap was left between the UPVC frame and brickwork, plugged with mortar(?). Look out for the daylight below!

 

IMG-20230923-WA0005.thumb.jpg.515839fb3149a8ee1226bd299bd16dcf.jpg

 

Lucky to have foam here, it's missing for most of the rest. The mortar-filled gap is over 2cm wide at this point.

IMG-20230923-WA0003.thumb.jpg.48ffc5943a73b584afef6ef09f587231.jpg

 

IMG-20230923-WA0010.thumb.jpg.b77cedbabd0580ab411e13e7788a0dad.jpg

 

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The out of focus bit is where the face of a brick has disappeared.

IMG-20230923-WA0008.thumb.jpg.5ed1724bff515b20827b67498fe12d3e.jpg

 

To get a nice straight edge to the window opening they didn't cut cinder blocks to fit. Oh no, they took small ones, lined up the edge and left a couple of inch gap to the next block... covering it with plaster in the room.

IMG-20230923-WA0006.thumb.jpg.e21457974b76de2e5a0f7dee8daae74a.jpg

 

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Despite the strong breeze blowing through and out of the cavity, it smells a bit - damp I think.

 

I've temporarily stuffed HelloFresh insulation in the cavity. My plan had been to shove 100mm PIR in as a cavity closer but the brickwork is too uneven for a 100mm sheet to fit. Will rockwool do the job as well?

 

And between the window and brickwork where there's the mortar and a little old foam: best to fill this entirely with foam, or does it need something more solid like chunks of PIR too?

Edited by Sparrowhawk
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21 minutes ago, TonyT said:

Cables. Run in the cavity too, man that’s rough

I know. Thought it was only one room we needed to get rewired for cavity wall insulation but no...

 

How does a "normal" house get its cables from the fuse board downstairs to upstairs? A wide chase above the fuse board, through the ceiling, then fan out under the floor?

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Penetrations. I've set a new record this week.

 

Not counting joist ends (I can poke a twig into the cavity round most of them) there's 7 penetrations into the cavity in 1.2m. And 5 penetrations through the ceiling to the room below, which houses the boiler and fusebox.

 

Rewring TBD later. Plan is to fill the gaps or coat the entire damn section of brickwork with something - mortar? plaster? - and then use Blowerproof to seal round the joists. I'm not taping this lot.

 

Happy weekend everyone!

 

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Edited by Sparrowhawk
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1 hour ago, Sparrowhawk said:

Penetrations. I've set a new record this week.

 

Not counting joist ends (I can poke a twig into the cavity round most of them) there's 7 penetrations into the cavity in 1.2m. And 5 penetrations through the ceiling to the room below, which houses the boiler and fusebox.

 

Rewring TBD later. Plan is to fill the gaps or coat the entire damn section of brickwork with something - mortar? plaster? - and then use Blowerproof to seal round the joists. I'm not taping this lot.

 

Happy weekend everyone!

 

20230929_163153924_iOS.thumb.jpeg.7cda60e9f30b700e8db63f32cb2800f7.jpeg

 

20230929_163202673_iOS.thumb.jpeg.96fe2f950849e7410fa2471924e5924a.jpeg

 

20230929_163221909_iOS.thumb.jpeg.1693c926222666ae1e472f66daab2433.jpeg

 

I have a solid wall construction and I'm packing the gaps and brickwork in the void with lime mortar.

Edited by jayc89
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Really good thread this is - I don't envy what you need to do - Ground floor of my house was a suspended chipboard floor with a very well ventilated 2-3 ft crawl space 56m2 of 75mm Kingspan PIR and 3 months work crawling thro a small hole in the floor one of the rooms had it all insulated but a job I never want to do again.

 

I do like your blower set up may have to look at doing that for my house

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