Cavity Wall Survey - Possible Scam?

Furts

Kiran wrote: »

I am genuinely curious about this and I hadn't heard it before. How would installing new windows invalidate your CIGA guarantee when the windows are fitted to the external skin and (unless installed by cowboys) never breach the cavity? Or is this to do with newer windows being thermally efficient and allowing less air flow etc?


Thanks

A typical detail is any timber window built into a cavity wall is built in tight and acts like a cavity closer. Yes the walls closed the cavities but the typical workmanship is carp and removing the windows loosens the walls and the cavity. In addition the fibres or beads can come out - sometimes the beads to an alarming extent. All this invalidates the guarantee.

In any typical situation you are wrong saying the windows are built into the external skin. They are set back from the face of the wall, and in your wonderful Wales they can be even more so - here you will see checked reveals.

I have a sample guarantee in front of me dated 2013 and this is the standard exclusion clause number 2. Clause 1 is to notify in writing any problems, so you can see the significance of the Clause 2 being the next most important in the eyes of ciga. This has always been the case and was so even twenty plus years ago.

Moving on, numerous windows are installed by cowboys on a price who do not give a ----, whilst countless other installers are untrained, and countless others only semi skilled. A good window installer is a rare entity. They are around but here it is the consumer who is guilty. I have rarely come across consumers who specify, inspect, monitor, quality check and sign off the work. Consequently the window installers have a free hand to do as they please.

Everybody knows ciga are an almost useless organisation but in their defence they are not stupid. They know all about window installation, and drilling through walls for kitchen vents, for bathroom vents, for en suite vents, for gas fire vents and countless other items. They then bounce a claim back to the consumer and blame the consumer for allowing the tradespeople to invalidate the guarantee.