Cavity wall issues

[2longinthetooth]

We are in the process of buying a house that previously had retro fitted cavity wall insulation beads. This yr the vendor had them removed. The vendors say they were spooked after seeing it on TV it can cause issues. Survey has shown zero damp and it doesnt look like the house has had an extensive make over to hid staining of mould. All good so far, until you go into the loft. There are insulation beads everywhere. Query source as its all supposed to be removed. The surveyor also noted each wall externally has had an air brick installed which he thought was excessive. The vendor who doesnt live at the property is coming back next week to sort. Any ideas what we should do, ive zero experience with this. Unsure if we should pull out of the sale.

I have a 1970s house with air bricks along all exterior walls. Pretty standard I would say for houses with suspended timber floors. Odd comment from surveyor.

Beads in the loft....was the cavity not closed properly at the roof plate, so they spilled over? Or did they loose fill the loft with them purposely to insulate?

No signs of damp is positive. I have blown wool in the cavities here from approx the 90s or early 00s. It's not caused any damp and didn't bother me in the slightest (nor my excellent surveyor) when I bought this place.

Nothing to worry about. The cavities were not closed in older properties so that explains the beads.
Beads don’t cause issues anyway, as long as the pointing is ok. You’ll be putting them in again!

@byedriverThanks for the reply, the house was built 86 and the floors are solid. Id have expected airbricks if there was a suspended floor but unsure if air bricks are needed for cavity wall. The surveyor says they are excessive. I mean as the house has not shown any damp ir visible areas of damp then I assume as long as the cavity is empty and beads removed hopefully its sound.

@KatiePricesKnickersit does say lose beads in attics can be a fire hazard. Im not sure. Im totally green about this. When you open the loft hatch they spill out everywhere. The attic is saturated in them. Doesn't seem right to me. Question is are they from the initial installation or removal, only the seller can answer this because I presume they have been in the attic when they lived there. I dont think they have been trying to hid something because they are genuinely shocked they are there and are making steps to rectify it. Not sure if we will be putting back in.

So beads if truly spilling over, should be removed and you can ask for this to be done before you exchange.

The rest wouldn't bother me. We took cavity wall insulation out of our first house (1950s build) as it did cause damp issues, it was less hassle than I expected and we had no issues afterwards. Survey will always err on side of caution, but unless the air bricks are going to cause an issue (and surely if they were your surveyor should have said?) it should be fine.

In the 80’s they were closing cavities, or at least, supposed to close them.
A Henry Hoover will sort out the loft beads, are they there instead of loft insulation?

As for the wall air bricks, they should be removed, it is just lowering the temperature of the inside skin of bricks. The previous owner probably added them to create an airflow in the cavity, which can be useful if you have damp or old lime mortar, but in the 80’s they were using wallcrete and it’s nowhere near as porous.

@KatiePricesKnickersThe vendors themselves didnt add the air bricks the cwi removers put them in. Probably their thinking was the airbricks would dry out the inner skin presumably if it was wet and they were having damp issues. I guess we will pay to get our own investigations done on the cavity walls. Also to see if the wall ties are sound.

@KatiePricesKnickersThe beads are sitting on top of the loft insulation but obviously they have migrated everywhere.

Are the airbricks below the level of the floorslab? If the construction is beam and block you need ventilation into the void.

Hi, OP I recognise you from the other house buying thread, you’ll recognise me. 😊 We’re about to buy a late1960s house with cavity wall insulation and are not bothered at all by it. DH is a professional in the construction industry . We also put cavity wall insulation our previous house. The problems usually are in houses that are not suited to the installation of Cavity wall insulation, such as the very old, or those in areas exposed to extremely wet and windy weather.
As others have said the beads are harmless, just hoover them up.

The process for removing the insulation requires bricks to be removed to make way for the vacuums. It's easier to place an air brick than a full brick and it will allow more air to circulate. As for the beads in the loft, as others have said, that is from the initial installation. They literally blow them in the cavity and they escape through the gap in the top into the loft.

@Somersetbakerthe bricks are above.

@Beebumble2hi, the surveyor couldnt understand why they had been taken out. They are the graphite beads so he said they are sound. He thinks the vendors has been ripped off. The surveyor is more worried that they are everywhere, attic is full of them, they are in tbe garden and he said possibly the drains. Tbh from the pics he sent I thought it was ott, as normally you would just sweep up debris like that in the garden. There were about 6 beads. Even drains in our current home had to be cleaned due to silt build up. So these are just normal jobs. Reassuring to know they are harmless.

@boredandgrandyes they prob assumed the cavities were capped as mentioned before given the age of the property.

I'd wait and be cautious. If the vendor was ripped off by poor workmanship, you don't want to buy his problem.

Wait for more information.

@tomorrowfollowstoday oh def, if we are not happy with the resolve we will get our own cavity wall surveyor in to assess. If its bad we will pull out of sale.

@DampSurveyorDad the vendor had no paperwork for the job other than an invoice, surveyor said off record he thought it was a cowboy job, we were advised to get a independant cavity wall specialist survey but the sketchy info from vendor and no paperwork made us edgy. We thought no one could give us a full guarentee regarding all the wall ties so walked away, there were other issues with the house such as roof and boundary walls, so weighing it all up it felt too costly.