8 year old house, no insulation

oldskoo1

Today I had it confirmed my 8 year old house has nothing in the cavity.

The kitchen is coming out and I had a look in the cavity where the extractor pipe used to be.

Apparently the plaster board is thick, 18mm, then there is a small air gap then a breeze block which is an insulation block the fitter said, he said a name but can't remember it.

Then there is the normal cavity and the outside brick.

Is this different breeze with thicker plaster board and air gap between enough to meet regs back then or did they skimp on the regs?

Buildings control at the council didn't sign off the site, so NHCB should.

tlh858

Insulation in the cavity was required then, just as it is now.
No way it could have met the thermal requirements with just the bricks & blocks.

oldskoo1

Just remembered the breeze block he said was called selcon breeze block

warmhands.coldheart

Are you sure there is none at all? Could be a case of poorly injected mineral wool type insulation. We had this were there were patches all around the house where they had missed bits, other areas they just hadn't done and other area's where they had not put enough in and it all settled to the bottom part of the wall. Had to have the whole thing topped up again. Didn't cost too much, few hundred quid. well worth it though..

teneighty

If thicker lightweight aerated concrete blocks such as 120mm thick Celcon Solar from memory and internal plasterboard drylining was used, house builders could achieve the required thermal insulation without cavity insulation.

oldskoo1

Yes we seem to have thick internal walls too, i found out that the bloody celcon thermalite was on the internal walls too when i tried to put up a simple wall fixing.

I think this is what they have used. Perhaps it meets the thermal requirements as you say.

I will tried peering into the cavity with torch warmhands, see if can see patching.

In a way if this thermalite stuff is insulating i might forgo the wool. Perhaps it needs to breath.

FilthyLuka

As I recall the 2002 pt L regs would have been in place which would require a u-value of 0.35 iirc. To achieve this you would need insulation in the cavity.

Its possible that older regulations may have been applied to your house if it were part of a larger development started prior to 2002 but even then cavity insulation would be the norm

oldskoo1

It was built after 2002, late 2003, think signed off like jan/feb 2004

Feels warm, retains heat well and gas bills are ok so far. Prob even better with insulation.