Wall insulation in Lover, starting with the exposed wall

Exposure first, then insulation. BS 8104 is the code for assessing how much wind driven rain a wall takes, and it is why a specification that suits a sheltered inner elevation is wrong on the gable next to it. On this side of the village we treat the south west wall as a separate decision from the rest of the house.

The borescope. One hole in a mortar joint tells us the cavity width, whether it is clean or bridged, whether the outer leaf is wet on its inside face, and whether an old fill has slumped. Age and reveal depth are guesses; the camera is the survey.

Bonded bead on the exposed elevations. Bead blown in with adhesive locks together, flows past obstructions, does not settle and sheds water rather than holding it against the inner leaf. On anything that faces the prevailing weather it is the only loose fill we will specify. Blown mineral wool goes in clean, wide, sheltered cavities and nowhere else. Where a cavity does take a fill it is the shortest payback on this page and the biggest single cut in heat loss, and Part L sets what the finished wall should reach.

When the honest answer is to leave the cavity open. A wet cavity, one under about 50mm, one bridged with mortar droppings or a wall with no cavity trays over the openings. On a weather facing gable with soft pointing, sorting the outer leaf comes first, because penetrating damp through open joints is a wall repair rather than an insulation problem.

Solid walls. Nine inch brick, cob and flint rubble have nothing to fill, so they take internal wall insulation or external wall insulation. On an exposed elevation EWI has a real advantage: the render and basecoat keep the rain off the masonry altogether and the whole wall sits on the warm side, so the dew point moves out of the structure.

Internal linings, carefully. Insulated plasterboard or PIR such as Celotex or Kingspan on a batten or stud frame with taped joints and a continuous vapour control layer, or wood fibre and lime where the wall is old and needs to breathe. On a wall that gets wet from outside, a vapour tight lining is a way of hiding water rather than removing it, and interstitial condensation behind a board is far harder to spot than the kind on your windows.

Reveals and junctions. The reveals, the threshold, the floor junction, the eaves and the joist ends are the cold bridge points, and on the weather side they are also the wet points. A shallow reveal takes an aerogel laminate rather than a thick board. This detailing is most of the labour on any lining job.

Ventilation and old fill. Trickle vents, working extract fans, air bricks left clear, to the rates in Approved Document F. Where a fill has failed, extraction is drilled from outside, the wall is dried, and we say plainly whether it should go back.

Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: the survey and any borescope check, the system and its thickness, making good around windows and doors, ventilation works, and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.

Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.

The New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for this side of the parish rather than the district council, so external wall insulation on a visible elevation is an application; their interactive property map shows what covers your address. Internal work is not development, per the Planning Portal's insulation guidance, and regulation 23 brings building control in once more than half a wall is renovated.

Ring rather than use the form. Damp patches or black mould appearing on an outside wall after cavity fill or internal lining usually means water is tracking across the cavity, or warm air is reaching a cold surface at a junction. We look before we take anything out, because the fix depends on which of those it is. Tell us which elevation the damp is on and whether it appears within a day of heavy rain or builds up slowly, because those two point at different causes. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

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Most of the driving rain that lands on a house here comes in from the south west, and it does not spread itself evenly. One elevation takes the great majority of it while the others stay comparatively dry, which is why so many houses have a single wall that misbehaves and three that never give any trouble, whatever the U value on paper says they should do.

For wall insulation that changes two decisions. The first is the material: a loose fibre fill in a cavity that driven rain can cross carries water to the inner leaf, and the damp turns up as a patch on the inside of that wall alone. Bonded bead does not behave that way, which is why we specify it on the weather side even when mineral wool would be cheaper. The second is order of work. On a wall taking that much water, repointing the open joints, clearing the gutters and checking the verge come before any insulation, because a wall you have made warmer and wetter is worse than one you left alone.

It is also why we survey elevation by elevation rather than quoting a house. It is normal here for the right answer to be a fill on three walls and nothing at all on the fourth.

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