Faulty CWI advice

Murraymoocow

Hi, I posted in December about problems with mould and condensation and was given some great advice, but I can't find the thread for some reason.

We've done some things to improve the house, more loft insulation, redecorated with special paint and moved things around for better airflow. This does seem to have made a bit of a difference.

We had Ciga organise an inspection of the cavity wall insulation and have just received the report back. House is in North West Cumbria literally 2 rows of houses away from the sea, really exposed on the worst external wall to wind driven rain. The surveyor found that parts of insulation have separated so there are large gaps in the insulation although he did note it was all dry inside. He also found loose mortar in the holes.

Ciga have come back and offered to remove the insulation but have stated that the house is poorly maintained to have caused the mortar ingress (?), therefore are not willing to add new insulation or pay for redecoration. The survey report states the house is in good order so I'm feeling a bit offended by this but glad they're willing to do anything given the stories I've heard about them!

Has anyone had any experience with this to be able to advise whether we should be agreeing? My concerns are that the surveyor only looked at one external wall and found it dry, what if the insulation on another wall is wet and requires more remedial work? 

We're hopefully having a single story extension built on this wall in a few months so we need to decide what to do sooner rather than later.

grumbler

Murraymoocow said:

Hi, I posted in December about problems with mould and condensation and was given some great advice, but I can't find the thread for some reason.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/profile/discussions/Murraymoocow

>> Damp and mouldy house

FreeBear

CWI should not be installed into properties in an exposed location - I would take the up on the offer to remove the insulation. Then I'd suggest looking at insulating the walls internally. 50mm of Celotex/Kingspan type will get you up to current building regs requirement without impacting on floor space. Doing the kitchen & bathroom walls would be a challenge, so perhaps put those off for the day when they get a full refurbish.

Murraymoocow

Thanks for the replies. 

Definitely going to go ahead with the removal, I think even if the insulation us dry now it's only a matter of time...

Luckily the kitchen is being moved as part of the extension so insulation there should be sorted. The bathroom will have to wait a while although incidentally it's the only room without any mould despite the humidity. If anyone wants a good bathroom paint recommendation we used kingfisher thermal anti-mould paint in there and its spotless nearly 2 years on.

plumb1_2

Close to Whitehaven?

Murraymoocow

Very close 😂

jessmist

How did you go about getting them to check your cavity wall insulation? 
I've got some damp patches on the outside of our back wall.
Thanks

Murraymoocow

I just filled out the form on the ciga website. To be fair they replied really quickly and organised the manufacturer to visit a couple of weeks later. Then I had to wait 4 weeks for the report to come back.

Fingers crossed they are quick to send an extraction team out too.

jessmist

Thanks for the info.
I'll have a look and hopefully get sorted, the company who installed mine has stopped trading now.
Hope they get you sorted quickly.

Murraymoocow

Returning with an update... I was all for praising Ciga for how quickly they dealt with the problem until their contractor arrived yesterday to remove the insulation. 

I was impressed at how quickly he was finished until he told me they were only contracted to do one wall. It appears I still have 2 external walls with cwi in-situ. I've been over all my emails with them where I discussed the external walls being damp (ie not just one) and mentioned verbally to the surveyor that they were all bad but the one he examined was the worst.

I've emailed them again looking for answers but no word back as of yet.

Am I being unreasonable expecting them to remove all the insulation given they knew it had failed? I'm not even sure the guarantee still holds with part of the work removed. 

Ganga

How did they remove the damp insulation,was it in the cavity ?