Free and Cheap Insulation Official Discussion

Enact_Energy_Representative

Poppycat wrote: »

EnactEnergyRepresentative you have not got proper permission you would have an official signature and your username would be in purple not blue

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Thanks for your prompt spotting, our status as "approved representative" was only confirmed this morning so MSE may not have updated my profile yet :-)

John_Pierpoint

It is nice to see that we have the occasional expert tracking this thread.

I have posted before on the subject of free insulation at the home of my (now) late in-laws.

As three - four years ago; they were over 75 their 1980 (ish) detached
house qualified for free insulation.

Well it is up for sale now and I remarked on its energy rating of "D":
It has double glazing, cavity wall insulation and the best part of a foot of fibre in the loft; though it still has its original wall hung gas boiler. The house has a view across a field of the he English channel and is presumably more exposed than most.

This got me looking again at the outside wall:

Taking the North East facing flank wall, because it is pierced only by the back door and a couple of meter boxes:

Here are the statistics of the work done paid for by what is classed as a tax:

The house has a 4 sided rectangular footprint.
The flank wall is almost rectangular, however the ground floor is slightly wider as it incorporates a utility room under a small sloping roof on the front of the building.

The wall is 63 (standard Fletton) bricks high (above damp course) and 27.5 bricks (stretcher bond) wide upstairs and 31 bricks wide downstairs.

Here is my question:

What pattern of holes in the mortar joints should be drilled to fibre fill such a wall??????

[I have been to a demonstration of such a fill and the first step was to calibrate the pump in a test panel to make sure the density it was creating was right].

Enact_Energy_Representative

Hi John

Typically the walls are drilled first beneath the centre of the window ledges and then at spaces horizontally of 1.35m. The lower drill pattern would typically be a maximum 0.8m above damp proof course and the top edge of the wall up into and gable end would also be drilled all the way along at 1-1.35m gaps.

Different products have different drilling patterns but each has a BBA certificate which you can view at https://www.bbacerts.co.uk here is an example for Knauf Supafil http://www.bbacerts.co.uk/CertificateFiles/20/2033ps1i1.pdf

Hope this answers your question?

John_Pierpoint

Enact_Energy_Representative wrote: »

Hi John

Typically the walls are drilled first beneath the centre of the window ledges and then at spaces horizontally of 1.35m. The lower drill pattern would typically be a maximum 0.8m above damp proof course and the top edge of the wall up into and gable end would also be drilled all the way along at 1-1.35m gaps.

Different products have different drilling patterns but each has a BBA certificate which you can view at www.bbacerts.co.uk here is an example for Knauf Supafil http://www.bbacerts.co.uk/CertificateFiles/20/2033ps1i1.pdf

Hope this answers your question?

Many thanks for that link to the instruction & data sheet relating to the BBA agrement certificate .

I am not sure but have a feeling that it was the Insta group that was the standard used by the contractors:

http://www.instagroup.co.uk/media/4122/instafibre_rockwool.pdf

Given that a metric brick, including the mortar, is 0.225 long and 0.075 high the flank wall has been injected more or less according to the specification.

The building has a hipped roof, so there is no gable triangle on the end of the loft.

Holes have been drilled horizontally every 6th brick and vertically every 17 courses [0.225 * 6 = 1.35 & 0.075 * 17 = 1.275] both those dimensions are within the 1.5 * 1.5 matrix, the maximum recommended, however the holes are in a simple grid; not on a diagonal diamond layout, where each next row of holes is centralised half way between the holes in the row below it. The treatment of the top of the wall also complies:
A hole every 3 bricks in a mortar bed 4 bricks down from the soffit & gutter board. Similarly the bottom row of holes is only 10 courses of bricks up from the damp proof course.

rizal23

cavity in the wall as far as I read in an article, that the wall cavity can cause a lot of moisture so that it invites insects to damage the wall.

Brian.s

Is it also Labor Free or are just the materials free?

Do you have to go through the survey to find out that you then have to pay for the labor for installing the insulation?

x.nukke.x

nipsa56 wrote: »

why do all the free insulations packs etc only apply to the mainland and not N Ireland

I agree - I'm moving into a house next month with an energy rating of an F. Improving the insulation will help move it up the scale quite dramatically, as well as saving us a lot of money per year (according to the EPC). Annoyingly it looks like we'll have to fork out for it and as a first time buyer, finding said money may not be too easy!!

Grandos

How can we find out what materials are used for the cavity wall insulation by Enact who are doing the M&S offer at the moment? we had a company round today who assured us that theirs is the only material worth using and other companies offering freebies use poor quality materials.

John_Pierpoint

You ask them and then you check their "Agrement" certificate, as explained in posting 215 above.

More importantly you check the cowboys who turn up to inject the walls against the agreed and tested method of doing the job..

antonio1

rizal23 wrote: »

cavity in the wall as far as I read in an article, that the wall cavity can cause a lot of moisture so that it invites insects to damage the wall.

I can only concur on moisture retention- CWI caused serious condensation in my house which I never had before and I regretted taking it. It's kind of logical once you appreciate how it works but I wasn't warned of the risk in advance by the installer nor surveyor. What happens is the cavity allows both heat and moisture to escape. Once you block the cavity, it reduces heat loss (good) but also moisture is retained (bad). Net effect is no heating costs saving as I have to keep windows open slightly in winter to let moisture escape but so does the heating. Recommend loft insulation (but similarly you need to ensure air can still circulate and escape thru eg vents to avoid condensation there).

Ask very carefully about this to the surveyor and installer as there's a material proportion of houses for whom insulation is a bad idea and you won't know in advance necessarily-ie it's a big risk. They'll say it's rare but there are loads of bad experiences if you google this. One article:

http://www.askjeff.co.uk/cavity.html