old house, air bricks and cavity wall insulation help?

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hi all
my house gets quite cold in the winter months and looses heat quickly if i turn the heating off. i am thinking of getting cavity wall insulation installed as its on offer at the mo with British gas.

i am a little concerned about whether to get it done tho as the house is a 3 bed semi and was build around 1930s and i am not sure if there is a damp course that spans the internal and external walls.The reason i think this is because the brick work, up to about knee level is done with engineering brick and a brick layer told me that it may not have any due to this.

Also some of the floors are concrete (kitchen and downstairs toilet) and the rest are timber with a void underneath them, and the insulation would block the air brick and then there would be no ventilation under the floor. there also seems to be a lot of air bricks on the walls. 9 on the front, 6 on the side (one of which is under the front door spanning the full door width) and 6 on the rear. all the air bricks on internal walls have been already bricked up about 2 years ago.

little lost on what to do, other than knock some bricks out and see if there is a damp course that spans it as i have heard that it can cause problems with damp/mold if it goes wrong. any information or advise would be greatly appreciated and sorry for the long post just trying to give as much information as possible.

 

[Bankrupt]

Built around 1930 ? Are you sure that it's got cavity walls ? ? .

 

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yeah its definitely got cavity walls

 

[wrathkeg]

not in a position to comment on the damp proof course, but we have a void beneath our floor. when we had cavity wall insulation done (free by a council contracted firm), they left the airbrick beneath floor level open* and didn't put any insulation down there.

when we had ours done we had a the company doing the insulation came out to do a couple of surveys (first a bloke with a clipboard, then a bloke with a drill). couldn't you get British Gas to come out and tell you whether the property is suitable, since they would be doing the work? Obviously worth checking if they would charge for this.


* actually, one of them sealed up the airbrick but when the mistake was spotted the airbrick was removed and replaced

 

[standard]

thanks for the post. i have got them coming round next friday to do the survey. i just wanted to get as much info as possible as you hear about the horror stories of where it all goes wrong. although the installers of the cavity wall insulation are contractors im sure it will be a good job as british gas have a rep to withhold. just like to know as much as possible so i can way up the pros and cons and any issues that could arise etc.
what did the bloke with the drill do and what was he looking for? any more info would still be appreciated. cheers

 

[wrathkeg]

the bloke with the drill drilled a hole in the external wall and said "yeah, this is a cavity wall", then left.

 

[Bankrupt]

thanks for the post. i have got them coming round next friday to do the survey. i just wanted to get as much info as possible as you hear about the horror stories of where it all goes wrong. although the installers of the cavity wall insulation are contractors im sure it will be a good job as british gas have a rep to withhold.

Did you mean uphold ? Was that a freudian slip ?

British Gas ? Reputation ? - Good Luck ! .