Timber frame house, new French doors no cavity closers and insulation in cavity wall. Advice needed!

essex_grl

We have a timber frame house with brick skin. Our French doors were getting damp on the plastered reveals we believe to be cold bridging as the doors are in the outer skin.

We hired a builder to put in new doors and open up the reveal to insulate and help against cold bridging.

We have been working during installation and not been able to check every detail but he has removed the original timber cavity closer, shoved 4 inches of Celotex into the cavity and closed up the reveal with plasterboard and plastered.

When I asked him did he fit a cavity closer he asked me to define what I meant as he hasn’t heard of them. Builder for 40 years 🤦🏻‍♀️

There’s a huge draught coming round the skirting and it’s freezing.

Is our only option to hire someone else to cut it al away again, pull out insulation and retrofit a cavity closer? Can they be retrofitted?

Thank you 

stuart45

Firstly I'd ask the builder to come back and fix the problem.

stuart45

I don't suppose you've got any photos?

essex_grl

Already did that. 

Explained I wasn’t happy with the insulation and could they remove and fit cavity closer.. he asked what one was that he’d never heard of them before.
He bought one and couldn’t get it to fit and said he didn’t know what else to do apart from cut the insulation down to make less of it in there and I did not know the right or wrong answer when I was on the spot.

im not a builder and not confident in telling one how to do something I’ve never done. 

It’s plastered in now so we’re going to lose 4K and have to get it redone. 

House is freezing with air flying in.

stuart45

The cavity closers for timber framed houses are different to the ones for traditional cavity walls. You nail them to the inner skin.

essex_grl

stuart45 said:

The cavity closers for timber framed houses are different to the ones for traditional cavity walls. You nail them to the inner skin.

Ok got some pics ..

essex_grl

Where can I find the correct cavity closers as we’re gonna have to redo all this and it’s prob best I buy the things and not trust a builder who’s been in the game 40 years who’s never heard of a cavity closers.

stuart45

Looks a bodge. The insulation doesn't even reach the skirting. 
Measure the cavity and get the closers to fit, could be from the merchants.
A vertical DPC should go from the frame into the cavity against the outer skin.

essex_grl

Can’t measure the cavity now it’s all plastered in. 

Are the cavity closers we need something like this? 

stuart45

Those are for brick/ block cavity walls, but you can get similar ones for timber frame.

essex_grl

They all seem to say they do both on travis Perkins and Screwfix etc. Tried to Google but only finding those.