Ring Ring
My mobile rang yesterday morning.
I thought it might be Herself but it wasn’t. It was from a bloke who wants to fill my cavities [Oooh er, Matron!] and would I be in. I said I would be so he said the crew would be around shortly.
The phone rang again. It was a bloke wanting to know if the sealing around my windows had been done. I told him that they were still a bloody mess. He said he’d sort it.
The phone rang again. It was a surveyor who wanted to call around to inspect the work that had been done and could he call around. I said he could.
The crew arrived to fill my cavities. They decided their lorry was too big and they’d have to bring a smaller van. They buggered off again.
The surveyor arrived. A nice chap who walked around outside and then poked into every room., He remarked that the windows weren’t finished. I said that I had noticed. He said he’d get that sorted.
This morning the phone rang again. It was the overall supervisor who coordinates the various crews [a nice chap]. Apparently the surveyor has discovered a stretch of wall that needs extra cladding. I asked where this wall was. It’s the few inches each side of the door to the garage. So that’s where all my heat is going? He said someone would call later to fix that.
The insulation crowd who are upgrading the house are like buses – I don’t hear from them for weeks then suddenly……..
As an American I was scratching my head on this one. Fill cavities, I assumed meant get a filling in your tooth. No that can’t be right, if they’re coming to your house. Does it have something to do with landscaping and filling in with dirt? Busy day at the Manor, glad the windows are getting sorted out.
Heh! The main walls of the extension are basically two walls – concrete block on the inside and brick on the outside with about two inches of a gap between them. The Home Upgrade people want to fill this cavity in the walls with micro-bead foam pellets to add another layer of insulation. If it makes them happy…….?
A word of caution. The end of terrace shop next door to my house had its cavities filled with micro beads a couple of years back and this winter our kitchen has suffered from bad damp issues due to water getting into the shops filled cavity and migrating on the beads into our cavity.
The ‘installers’ did not insall any barrier in the cavity to prevent their beads from flowing into our cavity.
Apparently once these beads get wet they stay wet.
There are firms going about offering a cavity wall insulation removal service, which tells yer something.
The walls that are being done are the extension to the back of the old manor. The latter has solid granite walls a couple of feet thick, No cavities there. If damp does get into the new crap then I suppose it’s up to me to sort it. Up to me, that is, until I get onto the contractors who did the job and sue them.
Couldn’t help recalling the old gag about the two gay Scottish blokes, Ben Doon and Phil Macavity. I’ll get my coat . . .
Or the two Irish men Patrick Fitzherbert and Herbert Fitzpatrick.
Where did you put the coats Mudplugger!
Ah lads!
Perhaps it’s just as well herself isn’t at home while all this is going on.
Keep going!
That has crossed my mind. There’s little worse than holes being drilled in the walls [with industrial sized drills]. There is no escaping the racket.
The whole idea of a cavity wall is that the weather stays outside the external wall, and the warmth stays inside the inner skin! The only bridges are wall ties to stop the whole lot caving in, so when anything from muck, dirt to insulation obviates this bridge and causes damp to go just about anywhere, unless it is totally impermeable.
We had some sort of fibre squirted into our cavity walls, and I have to say that we have no damp issues, and also found we needed less heating, so for the moment we’re happy with it all.
One thing about this extension that’s being done is that I have intimate knowledge of the construction. I did most of the block work and my father did the bricks. After nearly sixty years there still isn’t a single settlement crack, nor any damp. It can get a bit chilly in winter though so here’s hoping…..