Wall insulation in Cadnam and Bartley

Looking comes before filling. In Cadnam and Bartley an age gives you an expectation, not a fact. The camera shows the true cavity width, whether the builders left mortar snots bridging the gap, whether there are cavity trays over the openings, and whether the inner leaf is dry. Ten minutes of survey saves an argument later, and it costs nothing.

Bonded bead. Polystyrene bead is blown into a Cadnam and Bartley wall with an adhesive so it locks together. It flows past obstructions, gets into a narrow cavity, sheds water rather than holding it and does not settle afterwards, which is why we recommend it on anything exposed or anything under about 70mm. On a wall of this age it is usually the right material.

Blown mineral wool. Cheaper to install and perfectly good in a wide, clean, sheltered Cadnam and Bartley cavity. Its weakness is water: if driven rain crosses the gap the fibre holds it against the inner leaf. On a sheltered mid terrace or an inner elevation it is fine. On a weather facing gable it is not.

Cavities that already have something in them. On newer Cadnam and Bartley houses, especially from the 1980s on, partial fill boards may be fixed against the inner leaf, leaving a clear gap in front. Blowing loose fill into that gap bridges it and is a common way to create damp on a house that was fine. The camera tells us which you have before anything is ordered.

The walls that should not be filled. In Cadnam and Bartley, a wet cavity, one full of rubble at the base, one bridged with mortar, or a wall with no trays over the windows. Filling those buys a small saving in heat loss and a large chance of penetrating damp. Where a fill has failed and slumped, leaving the top metre empty, it has to be extracted and the wall dried before refilling is even considered.

Solid walls, where you have one. Older cottages and the odd single skin extension have a nine inch or half brick wall with nothing to fill. Those take internal wall insulation, insulated plasterboard or PIR such as Celotex or Kingspan on a batten or stud frame with taped joints, or external wall insulation with a mesh basecoat and a render carrier over the outside.

Reveals and junctions. A filled Cadnam and Bartley cavity still leaves cold bridges at the window reveals, the threshold, the floor junction, the eaves and the joist ends, and those are the strips where condensation and black mould show up. Reveals too shallow for a board take an aerogel laminate. This is the slow work and the first thing a thin quote drops.

Ventilation. Airtightness without ventilation is a trade, not a gain. Trickle vents in the windows, extract fans that actually move air, air bricks kept clear and not filled over, to the rates in Approved Document F.

First Thomas works out what kind of wall you have. Most Cadnam and Bartley houses from the late sixties and seventies were built with a cavity, and the question is whether it is empty, part-filled or done already. One small hole and a borescope answer it.

An older Cadnam and Bartley cottage is normally solid brick with no gap to fill. He also checks the outer face, the pointing and any render, since a cavity should only be filled behind brickwork that keeps rain out. Your written quote breaks out the survey and borescope, the chosen system and its thickness, making good round windows and doors, ventilation, and clearing up.

For a cavity fill a registered installer drills the holes from outside and makes them good in matching mortar. Lining from inside goes room by room, with the floor sheeted. Should we find failed wall ties or a cavity packed with rubble, we photograph it and price the extra before carrying on.

Filling a cavity or lining from inside is not development, which the Planning Portal's guidance confirms. Anything that alters the outside face goes to the New Forest National Park Authority, and Bartley lies in a conservation area; the interactive property map shows your address. Regulation 23 brings building control in once you renovate more than half of a wall.

Damp patches or black mould turning up on an outside wall since it was filled or lined? Phone rather than use the form. It usually means rain is crossing the fill from a leaky outer face, or warm air is hitting a cold spot at a junction.

Tell us which way the wall faces and whether trees shade it, because a wall that never sees sun dries slowly. On the first visit we look at the outside face, gutters and pointing, and take meter readings inside, before anything is pulled out. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For damp like this, phone, and if you cannot get through we return your call as soon as we can.

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Houses from the late 1960s and early 1970s are only one part of this mixed village, but they are a good period for this work. Cavities from those years are generally wide enough, the brick and block construction is consistent, and most were built before partial fill boards became common, so there is usually a clear gap to work with.

On a house of that age a cavity fill is a quick job with a short payback, one day, drilled from outside, nothing to move indoors and no scaffold on a bungalow. A quarter of homes here are bungalows and many more are detached, which means a large wall area for the floor area inside, so the wall is a bigger share of your heat loss than it would be in a two storey terrace.

The catch is the detail rather than the fill. Houses of this age often have no cavity trays over the windows and doors, thin or absent insulation at the reveals, and joist ends built into the inner leaf. So the reveal work is quoted alongside any fill, and where the camera finds no trays we say so plainly rather than recommend a fill and hope. The fill itself is done by a registered installer, not by us, and normally carries a CIGA certificate, so keep that paperwork with your EPC.

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

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