The recent push to retrofit insulation in Britain’s houses – slammed by green groups as the coldest and draughtiest in Europe – counterintuitively is likely to dramatically worsen living conditions, says Aris Roussinos in UnHerd. Here’s an excerpt:
Around 25% of Britain’s housing stock was built before 1919, the highest proportion in Europe. These houses were built according to time-tested techniques to manage the ambient moisture of Britain’s Atlantic climate through air flow – that is, the very draughts we now spend money attempting to eradicate. Air-permeable lime mortar between brick and masonry and lime plaster on the walls allowed moisture from within the home to evaporate outside, much like a high-tech wicking fabric. Draughty single-pane glazing allowed air to circulate, preventing the build-up of mould: the problem of heating draughty houses was efficiently solved by the simple, if now unfashionable expedient of burning vast amounts of wood, and later coal in open fires.
But after WWI, when many skilled tradesmen had been killed in the trenches, housebuilders adopted the newly-introduced solution of gypsum-brd plasters and cement mortar, as cheaper and quicker to work with. Because both are impermeable to moisture, houses began to be constructed with air cavities and external vents or air bricks for circulation. Over time, the old skills were lost, and houses built before 1919 – perhaps including yours – were renovated with impermeable gypsum plaster, and overlaid with non-breathable plastic-BRD paint.
Draughty windows were replaced with sealed double-glazing and chimneys were bricked up in favour of central heating, reducing air flow further. The result was an explosion of damp in British homes, and whole new industries of damp-proof courses and chemical injections – none of which work – aiming to resolve the newly-introduced problem. …
What’s the solution? Short of demolishing and rebuilding a quarter of Britain’s housing stock – often the most valuable and desired British homes – government grants wasted on introducing damp problems where they had never existed would be better spent on retraining tradesmen in traditional breathable techniques.
Worth reading in full.
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Government in a nutshell, when they are not making existing problems worse, they are inventing new ones.
Kill all bureaucrats, that’s how you improve a country.
Henry VI Part 2 Act IV Scene 2 Dick the Butcher
We live in a well maintained and well decorated 1850’s solid wall 4 bed house and don’t have a damp or mould problem UNLESS we don’t heat it correctly or hang clothes or place anything against an exterior wall.
Within a week or two the items are covered in mould due to internal condensation and NOT damp.
Having lived here for over 35 years we soon learnt not to restrict ventilation or place anything against exterior walls and to ventilate and heat them sympathetically.
My daughter and boyfriend are staying with us for a few months until they move into their new house, and he hung his clothes up against the exterior wall and they soon became covered in mould because he was not used to living in an old house. There is NO ingress of damp through the walls.
I wonder how many other people complain of “damp houses” and “mould” when in fact there is nothing wrong with the house just people being unaware of how to live in them correctly.
Her boyfriend must have wondered why none of you warned him about it until after his clothes were ruined.
When we bought our current house (modest1930s detached) the building society wanted us to have the walls repointed and have a detailed moisture survey for the internal walls to identify “rising damp”. They didn’t insist however and we went ahead. Nearly 40 years later we have neglected to have any repointing done, and the only survey done was by me removing the odd brick so that I could observe whether the dpc had been bridged by building rubble (I problem I had in a previous house). It hadn’t.
Our wallpaper still sticks to the wall and doesn’t peel off, so I feel vindicated.
Damp affects the corners of unused rooms on the surface of the paper/emulsion due to air circulation. It is always the outside wall corners furthest from the door, which is consistent with poor circulation. Simply the temperature of the wall is below the dewpoint of the air.
I had two long flower beds attached to my outside wall, and suspecting the cause of damp I knocked them out. That was some graft with a bolster and a sledge.
Lucky you!
External vents/air bricks were often used for underfloor ventilation, when timber floors were used – as late as the 1960s. In more recent times, carpeting was in common use. Another factor is that lots of houses have had the cavities insulated with spray-in insulation of various kinds. Some good, some perhaps not – if you can find out what it was.
Damp here is causing a salt build up as water from the outer skin bridges across the polystyrene beads and seeps through the inner wall and plaster, where it dries and leaves a salt residue.
Any builder asked will scoff at the idea of cavity wall insulation, precisely because it bridges the gap in the walls. The gap is intended to be hollow – a cavity- for both airflow and to shield the skins of the house from exterior moisture.
I am currently in the process of figuring out when and why my house was injected with these polystyrene balls (which are leaking from everywhere, blowing around the garden and into plug sockets)! I suspect that there was a green initiative 20 years ago before we moved in, and that money greased the palms of the local council and many a cowboy tradesman…
I hope that I can track down the original tradesman or councillor responsible for the policy and get them to pay to remove the bastard things from the cavity! It is destroying the walls, causing mould and spreading polystyrene into the environment they seek to protect!
Or you could just open the windows. Every morning, open them all wide for a few minutes, even in winter, and sleep in a cool room with at least one window slightly “cracked” open to let the oxygen in. People exhaling carbon dioxide all night in a room with windows tightly closed and the central heating on full blast makes them feel tired in the morning.
Also, sometimes what people think is mould is just black dust blown in that sticks to the walls and ceiling near the windows. Easy to wipe off.
Open windows to avoid condensation caused by insulation, rather defeats the object of insulation.
Might it not be better not to install the insulation and keep windows closed?
Oxygen is the point.
Building Regs people seem to recognise the problem. Before you can become eligible for any insulation grant your house must be surveyed to see if it meets current ventilation requirements – extractor fans, trickle vents, wall vents etc. If not, you will not be eligible. You will have to upgrade to the required standard at your own expense.
Some installers fail to make this clear because you have to pay them in full for the insulation before you can claim back part of the cost from the Government.
Current building regs though are based, like everything else these days on there being a climate problem and very often the measures the regs require are going to be costly and unnecessary, and when it comes to different types of insulation, very bad for your older house.
Lack of ventilation!
43 years in the building trade, hermetically sealed houses = mold!
Stachybotrys atra! Deadly, but who cares, no dirty air gets in!
freeflow of air is crucial!
Oh sorry, net f_ing zero! It’ll be the death of us all!
Well if you or anyone else has tips for keeping bathrooms mould-free then I’m all ears ( or eyes ). It must be the design because other neighbours said the same about theirs’. Literally everywhere that wasn’t tiled had mould, so I attacked it all with ammonia then did a coat of that special mould-proof paint, and now I wait and cross my fingers. That was a few months ago. Fortunately no probs with the rest of the house, touch wood.
Try using a small fan (not heated) to encourage air movement, mould dislikes moving air.
Cheers nige. Our extractor fan is neither use nor ornament and opening windows in winter isn’t really practical when you want a warm house. I’ll try and remember to have a look for a suitable fan. It’s cheaper than refitting my bathroom, which is what some neighbours have resorted to.
Extractor fans are generally in the higher part of the room and moist air is heavier so it tends to stay in the room, moving the air helps equal the density of the air throughout the room, and dissipate the moisture. If you have a desk top fan, the likes that have a USB plug, and a back up battery for charging phones and gadgets, you could use that as a trial before you commit to any further expenditure.
Thanks for the tips.
Fwiw Mogs, we moved into our hill-side villa here on the Med coast 23 years ago and noted two bedroom walls were wooden cladded, no others in the house were. The two walls were both North facing, and an inspection revealed serious black mould underneath. Our Rumanian builder stripped the claddiing and double treated the walls with bleach to kill off the mould, then applied an anti-mould primer followed by anti-mould top coat. Never troubled again. Good ventilation is crucial. The entire large villa was mould free for the 18 yrs we lived there, before selling to a French dude who uses the place for four weeks a year as a holiday home. The place is thus unventilated for 48 weeks a year and is black with mould.
Yes, hopefully my non-expert paint job will do the trick, especially if combined with a decent fan.
I always wonder about this issue when I stay in hotels, because their bathrooms rarely have windows and they are always perfectly mould-free, yet I have a window for ventilation ( at least in the milder weather ) but I have this dratted issue. What is the secret with hotel bathrooms, I wonder? I guess it’s all down to the ventilation system, as you say, and ventilation isn’t solely dependent on having a window you can open.
Having night-stopped 100s of hotel in my VC10 days, I never really gave it any thought.– Much too busy sorting out post-flight drinkies I guess. Looking back, I don’ recall ever encountering bathroom mould, even in places like Belize. (cockroaches are a different matter). I assume aircon, and thus a continuous replacement of regulated dry air is responsible for the absence of the dreaded black stuff.
I’ve come across many poorly designed houses over the years, the worst ones are those with internal bathrooms with no window for proper ventilation that in itself is a no no and should not be allowed in any home design.
Unfortunately Mogs there isn’t an easy fix to mouldy bathrooms, not leaving any standing water in mop buckets,wet towels or clothing, fitting a bigger extractor fan (5″ at least), leave the door open when not in use and, as you have done, paint effected area with anti damp treatment (Zinsser is a really good one) and maybe a heated towel rail that can be regulated to a constant low level
Thanks, Dinger. Your first point goes back to my above comment to 10navigator about how hotel bathrooms manage to stay mould-free though. What is the difference between hotel and house bathrooms if it’s the latter that get the issues, despite having windows?
But thanks all for the tips and advice. I’m such a noob and tend to turn to You Tube when in doubt.
Most hotels tend not to have heating they have air conditioning for the whole building, this kills mold dead because it removes humidity from the air (makes sleep more comfortable for the guests)
And of cause, rooms are cleaned and aired everyday after every guest, again, helping control mold.
Air con is a definite mold stopper but, not cheap!
A good dehumidifier then!
It’s all about air circulation. Well insulated houses are absolutely fine but they must be ventilated. I always have bathroom windows open slightly and even in winter they are left on trickle vent.
We’ve never turned an upstairs radiator on. Only heat the family room, it’s a great way of ensuring the kids aren’t so quick to slope off to their rooms, great for keeping the family unit together.
And the cavity wall insulation can make the situation worse in old houses. I got an old Victorian terrace that was extended at some point, making the chimney unusable in the corner of the room. The gas fire was in the correct central position and I ripped it out replacing it with a wood stove.
Labour threaten to make the use of wood stoves illegal, as no doubt any Tory government would be told to do by the Quangos it supports.
No tenuous link to mould, I’m afraid, with a double dump here. Just the latest on a couple of these recent stabbings;
”A man has been charged with murder in connection with the death of Amie Gray in Bournemouth.
Nasen Saadi, 20, from Croydon, has been charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with the alleged stabbing of 34-year-old Amie Gray, from Poole and another woman, aged 38, also from Poole, at at Durley Chine beach on May 24.
Saadi was arrested on May 29 following detailed enquiries led by detectives from the Major Crime Investigations Team and is due to appear at Poole Magistrates’ Court on June 1.”
https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/24359567.croydon-man-charged-murder-death-amie-gray/
”According to investigators , the man who injured six people with a knife at a stand of the right-wing populist “Citizens’ Movement Pax Europa” (BPE) in Mannheim probably acted out of Islamist motives. However, this is not yet certain. According to SPIEGEL information, the attacker is 25-year-old Sulaiman A., who was born in Herat, Afghanistan, and lived in Hesse, around 40 kilometers from Mannheim. The authorities had not previously identified the suspect as an extremist.
The attack took place on Friday morning. The perpetrator injured five BPE members and a police officer with a knife on the market square in downtown Mannheim before he was shot dead by another police officer.
The injured officer is fighting for his life, said Baden-Württemberg’s Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU). The police had previously announced that some of the injured had to undergo emergency surgery. Investigators were not yet able to provide any information on the extent and severity of the injuries.”
https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/mannheim-ermittler-halten-islamistisches-motiv-fuer-wahrscheinlich-a-025a18eb-e1a5-4313-8f19-bed4538f2d52
Absurdity always has unintended consequences, as well as some intended ones, like lowering living standards for political purposes. I have made every effort to avoid everything Green, but that is only because I educated myself about the pseudo scientific fraud. But many people are simply too busy with work and family life to do that. When we had all that push for cavity wall insulation some years ago, because of my interest in the global warming issue I realised it was just another aspect of the fraud. Government policy around energy and reducing emissions meant there was never going to be enough energy, ,so stuffing every crevice with foam was the braindead solution of the pretend to save the planet people. I knew that the cavity wall was there for a reason and that was to prevent dampness. It is the same everywhere you look in the Green fraud, whether it is turbines, solar panels, smart meters, electric cars etc, the whole emission reducing scam is sold to the public under false pretences of a climate emergency for which no evidence exists. Government know that if they keep hearing day after day about the climate crisis and because most re not going to educate themselves that they can tell them virtually anything about climate and they will believe it, because as my friend said” Why would they say there was global warming if there isn’t”?———-Now that is a very good question and one I was happy to try and explain to my friend but the power of propaganda is incredibly strong and if people see something on BBC or SKY news then that is usually enough for them and they let in the energy company to install their smart meter. I feel sorry for them.
I’m afraid this article is nonsense.
Damp proof courses were not invented following the introduction of gypsum plaster, double glazing and central heating. They were made compulsory in 1875 and are designed to stop rising damp, which is water soaking up the walls from the ground.
Central heating makes mould less likely, not more likely, by heating the walls and reducing condensation.
Modern double glazing has trickle vents to ensure adequate ventilation. This does not prevent the double glazing working, because the purpose of double glazing is not to eliminate draughts.
Lime mortar is not “air permeable”. It is water permeable, so it allows water to soak through. It is correct that cement mortar must not be used to repoint old walls with low temperature fired bricks, because the bricks can then suffer frost damage. But with modern bricks, cement mortar is vastly superior.
The modern fashion for dreaming about returning to hundreds of years old building techniques is ridiculous. It has more to do with nut zero concerns about the CO2 released by the manufacture of cement, than any concern about mould.
Small terraced house built in 1970. Concrete floor, double-glazed, loft insulated and cavity walls insulated.
When my son was using it as an office during lock-down I did get some mould in the small, north-facing 3rd bedroom which I presume was caused by a combination of heating it more than is usually the case and his presence for 7 hours a day. Since he returned to London, the problem has ceased.
I’ve not had a problem anywhere else. I don’t overheat it and windows are regularly opened.
Ask anyone who lives in northern climates like Norway or Canada. The problems of sealing up your home are well known and solutions exist. Besides high humidity and mold, you create a very toxic environment with high levels of CO2, germs and gases given off by furnishing materials. All sealed houses must be fitted with ventilation fan systems. These can include air to air heat exchangers to reduce heat losses. Retrofitting insulation in walls or attics to old houses can be a problem also, in the wall or attic due to moisture and mould buildup and rot if wooden construction. These areas cannot be ventilated properly. Your house can be destroyed by sealing it up without precautions.
“… with high levels of CO2…”
Average CO2 concentration on submarines is 3 000ppm to 5 000ppm – can go higher if the sub has been deep for a while.
Atmospheric CO2 is about 420ppm and that is what it will be indoors in any building unless it is hermetically sealed so no outside air gets in – in which case death will be from asphyxia – that is lack of oxygen.
O/T
Since February this year the building regulations have required a huge biodiversity area for new housing. That means there will be an even bigger sequestration of potential food producing land. The exising adjacent belt of trees on land I am interested in cannot be taken into account. If we were barbarians we would have cut down all vegetation before February and received praise for planting anew after that.
A nearby housing development removed numerous mature and viable trees in 2020/21 but replaced them with saplings which have already been pruned by the owners who are tree averse.
Madness!
Chesterton’s Fence: before you decide to change something, make sure you know why it is the way it is, to understand the consequences of changing it.
I recall the 1970s/80s loft insulation fad to ‘save energy’ (crise du jour then was volatile oil prices and Peak Oil due any second).
What could go wrong?
Many homes had cold water header tanks in the loft for the hot water system and bathroom cold taps. Cometh Winter, cold lofts, burst tanks, burst pipes, flooded homes. Nice one.
Human nature. Insulation will not ‘save’ energy, people will just use the same amount of energy but have warmer indoor temperatures. Just as energy saving light bulbs result in people have more lights which they leave on longer.
Heat pumps: these become less energy efficient as the gap between the desired indoor temperature and outdoor temperature widens and as outdoor humidity increases. In other words, typical British cold, damp Winters.
Any energy saving from insulation will be reduced or zeroed by the increased energy required by the heat pump. This is not a problem with gas boilers whose energy use is not determined by external conditions.
Since insulation is recommended when changing from gas to heat pumps, this is an explicit admission heat pumps are less efficient and will cost more to operate.
Surely, trickle vents on all windows is huge step in the right direction to preventing mould growth.
Yes.