Hello - I'm looking for advice as to what trade can help me
this may be a forlorn hope and forgive the detail. I have just had three large replacement (6ft x 4 ft) uPVC windows installed in an existing dormer (three rooms, two of them bathrooms- it is a long flat-roof dormer built in the 70s). The result is far colder rooms, cold interior walls and gales blowing through cracks (new and old) in the interior and exterior walls of the rooms e.g. the gap where the soil pipe enters the interior wall. The old secondary glazing was ugly but the rooms were at least 2 degrees warmer before the replacements went in.
Who can assess for me why there is now cold air being sucked into the three rooms concerned? A structural engineer? I would like to claim on the installer's insurance and work out how to get back some warmth (freezing cold bathrooms are not fun).
Also, can anyone suggest a solution (thermal wallrock? fill the stud walls with insulation?) I am worried about the dormer construction. I'm sure the 100 year-old A frames aren't going anywhere! but perhaps there is hidden damage in the more modern construction.
thanks!
Mashie
details
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The dormer was built in 1970 between original A frame beams in a stables built in 1900. In layers from the outside in it looks like tiles laid vertically on wood, with an interior plywood wall that has had plasterboard attached followed by a skim. I presume there is a wooden framework of some sort between the inner and outer wooden walls but this is as much as I can see by looking at the window edge. There is some tar felt barrier involved at some points, perhaps this has been damaged.
I think there must be some damage to the dormer frame or studding somewhere that I cannot see. I've filled all the leaks I can find which is helping somewhat but many of these gaps were always there - the difference is that cold air is being drawn into the gaps in the stud walls (I think).
Downstairs they broke a breeze block in half by silly use of a crowbar so I am supposing they were also fierce and clumsy with the dormer. There was a lot of vertical cracking in the plaster skim on the window wall. A vertical gap half an inch wide and 18 inches long was created between the front wall of the dormer and each of the side stud walls (I have filled this gap myself). The drafts are more from old cracks in the two side stud walls than from the window wall (where I have filled the new cracks).
The installers seem amenable to a claim on their insurance - although it has taken weeks they have been good enough to make good their work and reinstall the windows which helped (they hadn't filled gaps around the window at all). But I don't know what the damage is.
this may be a forlorn hope and forgive the detail. I have just had three large replacement (6ft x 4 ft) uPVC windows installed in an existing dormer (three rooms, two of them bathrooms- it is a long flat-roof dormer built in the 70s). The result is far colder rooms, cold interior walls and gales blowing through cracks (new and old) in the interior and exterior walls of the rooms e.g. the gap where the soil pipe enters the interior wall. The old secondary glazing was ugly but the rooms were at least 2 degrees warmer before the replacements went in.
Who can assess for me why there is now cold air being sucked into the three rooms concerned? A structural engineer? I would like to claim on the installer's insurance and work out how to get back some warmth (freezing cold bathrooms are not fun).
Also, can anyone suggest a solution (thermal wallrock? fill the stud walls with insulation?) I am worried about the dormer construction. I'm sure the 100 year-old A frames aren't going anywhere! but perhaps there is hidden damage in the more modern construction.
thanks!
Mashie
details
--------
The dormer was built in 1970 between original A frame beams in a stables built in 1900. In layers from the outside in it looks like tiles laid vertically on wood, with an interior plywood wall that has had plasterboard attached followed by a skim. I presume there is a wooden framework of some sort between the inner and outer wooden walls but this is as much as I can see by looking at the window edge. There is some tar felt barrier involved at some points, perhaps this has been damaged.
I think there must be some damage to the dormer frame or studding somewhere that I cannot see. I've filled all the leaks I can find which is helping somewhat but many of these gaps were always there - the difference is that cold air is being drawn into the gaps in the stud walls (I think).
Downstairs they broke a breeze block in half by silly use of a crowbar so I am supposing they were also fierce and clumsy with the dormer. There was a lot of vertical cracking in the plaster skim on the window wall. A vertical gap half an inch wide and 18 inches long was created between the front wall of the dormer and each of the side stud walls (I have filled this gap myself). The drafts are more from old cracks in the two side stud walls than from the window wall (where I have filled the new cracks).
The installers seem amenable to a claim on their insurance - although it has taken weeks they have been good enough to make good their work and reinstall the windows which helped (they hadn't filled gaps around the window at all). But I don't know what the damage is.
I already lost £1800 deposit paid to a company that went bust - deposit insurance didn't work there as it took too long for them to let us know they were in receivership. Both small, local suppliers. I am actually contemplating going back to Safestyle for the next lot of windows. We had to watch this lot like hawks as well (once we realised they were cutting corners) Safestyle and these both did considerable damage to other parts of the house (standing on furniture and breaking it, opening curtains with hands covered in caulk, filthy handprints everywhere) but Safestyle didn't make my house freezing cold. 
