Wall insulation in Brockenhurst

Reveals, and why they decide everything. The insulation has to be returned into the reveal, the head and the sill, or the opening becomes a cold bridge round all four sides. Where there is 50mm to play with, a slim board does it. Where there is 15mm and an original frame, a thin aerogel board is the only thing that fits. A thermal bridge at a reveal is exactly where the dew point lands and black mould appears.

Internal wall insulation on a solid wall. Wood fibre bedded in lime and finished in lime plaster where a Brockenhurst wall is soft, old or damp, so it stays breathable and vapour can pass. Insulated plasterboard, or PIR board such as Celotex or Kingspan on battens or a timber stud, where the wall is dry and hard enough to carry a sealed face. Radiators, sockets and skirtings come off and go back.

Solid walls do not take a fill. A nine inch brick wall in Brockenhurst is not a brick and block cavity wall, however alike they look under render, and injecting one achieves nothing at all. The borescope tells us which you have in a few minutes.

Cavity fill on the newer Brockenhurst houses. Bonded polystyrene bead through a drilled pattern, or blown mineral wool on a sheltered wall with a sound outer leaf. It has to be clear, dry and wide enough, and a wet cavity, a bridged one or one holding a fill that has failed and slumped gets dealt with rather than filled over. Holes are made good in a matched mortar.

External wall insulation. Board, a render carrier and mesh, then a through coloured finish. It keeps the masonry warm so interstitial condensation has nowhere to form, but here it changes the outside of a building in a conservation area, so it is an application rather than a decision.

The other junctions. The threshold, the floor junction, the eaves, the joist ends and any party wall. Timber built into an old Brockenhurst wall is the risk, because the lining leaves the masonry around it colder and wetter, so those ends stay ventilated.

Ventilation. Trickle vents where the windows will take them, a working extract in the kitchen and bathroom, and air bricks kept clear. Approved Document F sets the expectation, and on original casements that cannot take a vent we look at the alternatives properly.

A good share of Brockenhurst's houses are older than the cavity wall, so many walls are solid brick. Later houses have cavities, and some are filled already. Thomas finds out which you have before anything else: a borescope through one drilled hole shows whether there is a cavity, and whether it is clear or bridged.

The quote for a Brockenhurst house itemises the survey and borescope check, the system and its thickness, making good round windows and doors, ventilation works, and disposal. A cavity fill should come from a registered installer with a CIGA certificate. Internal lining goes room by room with the floors sheeted, and the deep reveals on older windows are detailed properly so they do not become cold spots. Waste leaves with us each day. If the wall turns out different from what the survey showed, work stops until you have seen it and the price.

Inside the New Forest National Park, anything that changes the outside face of a house gets more scrutiny, particularly if a conservation area applies. Look your house up on the interactive property map, and the heritage pages explain consent. Lining the inside of an unlisted house needs no planning permission. Building control is engaged under regulation 23 once a thermal element is renovated, and Part L sets the U-value the wall has to reach.

Damp patches or black mould on an outside wall after cavity fill or lining usually mean rain is crossing the cavity, or warm air is reaching a cold spot at a junction. Do not paint over it.

Take a photograph square on to the window, with a tape against the reveal, and ring us. The first visit looks before anything is taken out, because the fix depends on which of the two it is. Planned jobs run Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Ring rather than fill in the form, and if nobody answers you will hear back from us as soon as we can.

Call now: 07435 839745

On a pre-1900 house the window sits well back in a thick wall, and the plaster returns from the room into that opening in a narrow band. That band is the reveal. It is the thinnest part of the whole wall, it is surrounded by cold masonry on three sides, and it is where nearly every insulation problem in an old house begins.

The arithmetic is unforgiving. Put 60mm of board on the wall and stop at the edge of the reveal, and you have made the wall around the window much warmer while leaving the reveal exactly as cold as it was. Warm damp air from the room now condenses on the coldest surface it can find, which is that strip, and the mould follows the line of the frame. People blame the windows. It is the detail.

So the reveal is measured before anything is specified. Where there is depth, the insulation is returned into the opening in a thinner board with the same face finish. Where there is not, because the sash box, the shutters or the frame take up the space, aerogel is used instead: expensive by the sheet, and cheap against redecorating a room every second winter. Where even that will not fit, we say so and price the wall knowing what it will and will not achieve.

Nearby places we also cover for wall insulation, with straight-line distances from Brockenhurst, and the other trades we offer in Brockenhurst itself.

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