Last year, as part of an awareness-raising campaign, the Property Care Association asked contractor members to submit photos and details of properties where they had been called in to do remedial works because of defective insulation retrofits causing damp and mould.
The examples show basic failings in moisture management. Below are three of those submitted.
The house above has suffered from poor and uneven installation of cavity wall insulation, causing cracking to the external walls that had been masked by render. The pictures show the property with the render hacked off. Internally, water penetrating through the walls had caused severe mould growth.
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Here, insulation has not been applied evenly, without filling the entire cavity, and therefore there was no continuity of the insulation. This led to cold patches on the inside walls. Also, water penetration has saturated the insulation.
The house was an unsuitable candidate for cavity wall insulation in the first place as it had a soft wall construction and was in an exposed site where it was subject to wind-driven rain. The water therefore entered the cavity and soaked the insulation. The insulation became the medium for water transfer, creating the internal dampness problem. Internally, the plaster had to be removed so that the insulation beads could be removed from the inside.
The insulation has allowed water to be held on the structure, where is it appearing as a line of damp on the internal brick face. Again, the bungalow was subject to wind-driven rain, but instead of running down the inside of the cavity, water was held by the insulation. The insulation is being extracted from the outside of the home.
