Removing Cavity Wall Insulation

[Joe Shmoe]

Try to keep this short.

New bungalow I have purchased, lots of mould in kitchen behind the bottom cupboards. I believe *may* be attributed to damp from cavity wall insulation - mineral wool installed almost 25 years ago.

While rewiring and removing old sockets, I used camera too view into the cavity, and basically all the insulation is sat in the lower 3rd of the wall, there is none up top. Either it's all slumped over the past 25 years, or maybe it was never full?

Not a expert on this, but to my mind, filling up a cavity on an 1950s brick bungalow with loose fill mineral wool wouldn't be something I'd do personally.

Debating whether to get this removed and if so, rather than pay a firm to remove, I wonder if it's possible to access the cavity by removing the lowest roof tiles and fishing it out somehow? (it's a Bungalow, roof tiles are not nailed and has no membrane).

Basically just looking for anyone's. experiences etc.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

This sounds to me like the bottom of the wall is cold and relatively poorly ventilated - so that warmer, moist, air has been hitting it and cooling so dropping water as condensation. This seems much more likely to me than moisture being drawn through the wall from the outside by faulty/poorly installed cavity insulation.

If I'm right, it simply shows that the wall is not very well insulated (perhaps the insulation is not properly installed - there could easily be voids near the bottom - or it could be damper than it should be - most insulation works really badly as soon as it gets damp).

Have you checked all the obvious things like rainwater goods etc. outside - and the state of the outside of the wall?

 

[Spectric]

New bungalow I have purchased, lots of mould in kitchen behind the bottom cupboards. I believe *may* be attributed to damp from cavity wall insulation - mineral wool installed almost 25 years ago.

There are a few specialist firms that do removal of this stuff, have seen the vans from a firm based in Newcastle around as they must have a lot of work. I think they have to make holes in your walls though.

https://www.cavityextraction.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvbKay6vzggMVUOftCh0uegGSEAAYASAAEgIdFvD_BwE
https://www.extract-north-east.co.u...MI0LWU-avzggMV-ZFQBh2jyg2vEAAYAyAAEgJYqfD_BwE

 

[artie]

Have you checked what the humidity levels are.

To my mind that's step number one.

 

[Sideways]

1978 build house.
Attic or "room in roof" style.
Means my external walls are only as high as those of a bungalow, but with a steeper pitch roof.
I'm planning to have the cavities filled with more modern thermabead style fill but wanted to reassure myself that this was sensible.
I have been all the way round the house checking the cavity from above as you describe. It's easy in my case, only need to remove the soffits for access.
Inspected with a wifi ferrett camera,

Then dropped a vacuum cleaner hose down and waggled it about to knock back some of the mortar snots and clean out some grass and twigs dropped in by nesting squirrels (!) and closed the tops of the cavities with "cavity socks" so that when the walls do get filled there won't be beads overflowing out of the top of the walls.

My cavities are 60mm give or take ...

So yes, you may be able to get the filling out from above