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Here's another variation on the planet-saving threads we've seen recently. My sister wants to insulate her cavity walls. She's been told it will pay for itself in 3 years and save about £150 a year thereafter. All the websites I can find with online energy calculators seem to be government (or local goverbment) sites and these all pretty much agree with that figure for her particular house (4 bed brick & cavity 1950s bungalow with loft conversion).

Does anyone have experience of this or can anyone point me at an independent site with some unbiassed information on it?

Ta!

I don't know about the cost benefits but if anyone living in the house is on benefits (or a few other categories) then you can get cavity wall insulation for free under some Government grant scheme.

My other half, who looks after elderly and infirm parents, got her 4 bed detached done and, much to my surprise, it does feel much warmer. The difference seems to be that the internal temperatures in rooms are much more even than before.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

[quote="malcolmw"]I don't know about the cost benefits but if anyone living in the house is on benefits (or a few other categories) then you can get cavity wall insulation for free under some Government grant scheme.

quote]


The rules could have changed in the past few years, but years ago i qualified under Family Credit, got doorframes draftproofed , etc etc and energy saving light bulbs - couldn't get cavity insulation - cavity is too small .It was done then by some government scheme to give work to persons recently having lived as guests of Her Majesty to enable them to get back into society.
Those days. i thought it ok - nowadays ???

I don't have any figures for cost savings, but when my dad had his done (late 60's house) it made the house much more comfortable with a lower setting on the thermostat. If the house is full of people the heating hardly ever switches itself on.

The single biggest difference was changing the boiler from a 1960s wall flame oil burner to a modern pressure jet boiler - It halved the oil consumption.

Cavity wall insulation is definately worth doing, no question about it. My parents had it done about 15 years ago and although the bonding collapsed (it shed little balls into out the cavity vents) it was replaced for free a couple of years ago because it had a long underwritten guarantee.

Gareth

At what age did houses start being built with cavities?

Mine was built around 1914 (ish) and I'm not sure whether it has cavities or not.

Council tell me that mine was built 1920sh -30sh, but local historical gent tells me that road was constructed bY POW in WW2.
It has got a cavity ,only too small for insulation.

.Bloke that checked mine did a test hole .Probably CE has a better method.

Suggest looking to see if airvents are staggered or straight through - staggered definately got a cavity

I had it installed on a 1905 semi and 1950's bungalow and the diference was significant.
there used to be a three degree diference between the center and extremities of the bungalow it is now about 1 degree. (we do not have double glazing yet)

It definatly works and if any one in the house gets any benefits they can get it for FREE.... yes FREE! (warm front grant) including all means related benifits and disability living allowance, attendance allowance, etc. Aston insulation did the paper work and insalled it within a week. no money changed hands.


It costs similar to double glazing on small window yet gives mich more benefit.

one thing I would do before installing it is make sure any damp problems with blocked cavities have beeen delbt with before hand.

Well worth doing

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Dumb question, is there any way to tell externally whether the cavities are insulated? I've been given no reason to believe that mine is insulated, and there is no external evidence of a line of holes around the outside or anything like that, but is there any way to find out for sure?

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

In my bungalow, the insulation pokes out from gaps between the roof and walls in the loft.

Keyhole camera through the air-vent, or take a brick out!
I'd be surprised if it had been done and nobody made a thing of it when it was sold on though..

My house was built with thermocrete block, with insulation already applied to one side of the blocks. It also sits on several inches of insulation, and has double glazing.
ONE gas fire heats the whole house (convection - no back boiler), and we have a factory lagged electric immersion heater which if switched off, and left, is still too hot to put your hands under after three days!

Rural locations lose the benefit of urban warming - and my house is semi-detached, so only one shared wall.

Does ANYBODY still have a parrafin heater in the home?
They are popular in France - with modern heaters, electronic ignition and temperature control, and PERFUMED parrafin!!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

My parants had cavity wall insulation installed back in the early 80's. It didnt save as much as the original claims because they took advantage of it to live in a warmer house for the same money.

(You will only save if you remain as "Uncomfortable" as you were before! )

Re comments on Wallflame oil boilers. We had one of those too and it used fuel like it was going out of fashion. It also generated a lot of soot so the chimny had to be swept each year producing a sack of smelly yellow/brown sulfurous soot!

Lovely!

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Thanks all!

Mole,
It may be worth getting an camera survey of the cavity ties (metal strips that hold the leaves together), as if these are needing replacement and you fill the cavity before checking you'll never get a chance to see them again.

My other thought is, strip the plaster off the inner face of the exterior walls and replace with insulated plaserboard, this removes all the damp issues, however the work is inside the house, and would be a bit messy.

fatboytim

PS. Seriously as someone qualified in building and construction, I wouldn't fill my cavity (ooh err Mrs).