150 MILLIMETRE CAVITY TO MEET NEW BUILDING REGULATIONS 

The problem with watching these videos is you start looking for things you never knew were even things before. My wife asked me why I was looking at the wall above the living room window so I just replied "looks like that is a steel lintel and its rusted, no weep vents, and I bet it doesn't have a cavity tray". She just shook her head and walked off. Could have been worse - another channel I like is the drain un-blockers from Liverpool ... at least I didn't have my head down a manhole

Lucky Customers to have you guys working on their projects - hope they appreciate your dedication to perfection. Hope the hips are bearing up Steve and that Al's health is doing OK, best wishes to you both.

Great block work guys. Looks so amazing from where I were siting. Even the roof fitted perfectly. 😎🙃🖖👍

Sorry boys I'm a day late, I spent most of yesterday at the hospital absolutely sheering by the time I got home all there was time for was eating and then bed. I have just watched you video thoroughly enjoyed it nice to see you two building, Keep up the good work, best regards Ken

bricklaying is a real graft,well done for doing such a brilliant job,im a plasterer and i appreciate a good tradesman.

Nice quality work and a very tidy work area 👍

Whenever I watch you work I am impressed with your dedication to quality

Another fantastic job 👍🏻

And yet another fine job. Great content and never mind the losers who just hate, you know what you are doing!

Class work fellas, a credit to you both.

I look forward to your videos coming online :-) Stuck in front of a computer working its great to have these on next to me - something satisfying about watching a couple of professionals do a fantastic job and explain how its done... even though I am not in the trade I've learned a thing or two.

interesting video. I love watching builing contents.

Thank you 😊 rhis brings back memories

Excelente trabajo saludos 👌👍🧱⚒️👍

Neat job lads, very good

This is good work thumbs 👍 up

Going to be building house walls as thick as castles soon but with cavity. The trouble though the plot size will remain the same size and looks like a monster house from the outside but is so small on the inside you have to buy dolls house furniture 🤣🤣 Great work as always and really enjoy watching your videos 👍👍👍

Good placement of camera even the clothes line in the background had flashes of red!

Love that, chief!

Great job Steve as always i would had window on big wall over looking garden feel dark no you just go from plans keep up great work 👍👍

Love the bit at 15:35. For those who remember....."Al, Al, Al" Made me smile.😅

lovely work as always, your customers are a lucky bunch , I hope they keep you well supplied with tea and biccies.. The insulation issue does seem a bit trying especially finding gear to fit and etc, but the flip side is much lower heating bills which is a biggie nowadays. ATB from J&H Builders

wow like legos. you make it look easy!

Last new build I built was 150mm cavity with 150mm Celcon internally.!!😳.. worlds gone mad.! Keep up the good work lads 👍

Keep up the great work lads . Nice to see there are still properly built houses going up . Timber framed super insultaed firerisks that you can hear next door but 4 coughing in have become far too common, nice to see some still doing the job right

Looking good guys ! I promise it will not get easier with all the regulations I bet more things are coming your ways .. first it’s insulation and eliminating or making cold bridges better , next up is airtight building and than you have to build passive homes ;)

Top job, great to see it finished with the roof on. Assume as well as improving insulatuon, thise cavernous cavities also help reduce the problem with insulation promoting damp transmission across the cavity? In this case however assume its probably having cement render on the outside so shouldn't be any issues for a few good years whilst that is all intact.

That lad needs to get a watch. My gosh, how long it takes him to confirm the time. These modern kids I swear.

Lovely deep window sills, at least

I live in a 2004 build with 100mm full full cavity and uninstalled solid floor. We have electric only storage heaters and this last year is been very expensive to heat the flat. So I am happy to see larger cavities/more insulation on builds.

Nice work I laughed when Steve reached for the level and it fell the wrong way So its not just me that does that :)

That is so me.....PERFECTION 100% or die!!

I specced a secondary layer using superfoil basically standard breeze with insulation in then batten superfoil batten then plasterboard its 30 outside and 23 in the extension. The air gap is the key the stuff is like space suit material piece of cake to put up highly recommended

You are very tidy workers.

Improving the U value of the envelope is a positive move Should have been imposed years ago ✌🏼🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

12 years ago i built a place in shropshire 200 mm cavity with 7 newton thermalites on the inside the 25mm glass units should have been treble glased to match the 200 insulation performance even in the depths of winter the house was warm a multi fuel burner ticking over no gas or oil bills well worth it .the only setback on small projects like this the customer looses 200mm from a small extension which is a fare bit

Subscribed 👍 great job lads. May I ask...if you had a freezing house and then built a 2025 regs extension, how much benefit would be given to the old part? Possibly EWI on some walls connecting to the extension. Obviously what you saved on heating the new could be instead put into the old.

Now You have a decent drill (120NM / 2000rpm) You can buy a mixing paddle and knock up your mix in a bucket like butter! When it goes off you can bring it back to life so easy. well worth it in the hot months.

I'm a 67 year old brickie . I remember when cavities were 2 inches (50 mm) 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Great

was working in Belgium in 2008 and cavity was that big on houses, we used spiral rods instead of wall ties that are used in uk. layed inner leaf with rods spaced out. and then pushed rods through insulation

Cant understand why anyone would moan about having insulation. I went overboard with it when I refurbed my property 10 years ago but boy am I reaping the benefits now. Warm as toast in winter and fresh and cool in the summer with heating bills similar to a 3 bed semi in a 20 room country house.I will never forget waking up with ice on me when I was a kid and Im not having my kids experiencing that displeasure.

That's something that has caused me trouble in the past..... having insulation that is in contact with the inside and outside wall. Any damage or constant driven rain eventually penetrates the outside wall and the insulation soaks it up like a sponge and transfers the damp to the inner wall with the obvious results 😂

Wish we used them blocks and insulation in Ireland. I woukd say a 4 solid woukd weight 4 of them blocks your using. As for the insulation for 100 or 150mm cavity its full fill soild insulation no room for error . Has to put in carefully or it push out your blockwork

Hey, guys. Good job as always. Did you need cavity trays and weep vents for this one? As you didn’t show in the video. Cheers.

Hi guys🖐As many of your other commenters have said, I'm using 90mm T&G PIR boards in my cavities, which is a little more expensive, but better thsn losing another 50mm of space, which is particularly important when doing extensions👊 (I didnt let the builders bricklayers fit it though😵‍💫) Cheers Del

How you doing steve . Had them cavities in wales a while now difficult to get lintels cavity closures etc to accommodate the cavity. I think its all a bit OTT now the cavity is now another room. 65 mm i think it was when i started. Cracking job on a Sunday again . Rest up take it easy steve mate 👍 🧱🧱👌

Good job. I have a question here is the us most exterior walls are framed with lumber the either sided or bricked on the exterior and plasterboard on the interior. All electrical plugs and switch wires are run in walls before plaster board and insulation are done. So my question is how is the electrical done on exterior walls.

It's utterly crazy using all-masonry construction when SIPS panels can provide better insulation and faster, easier construction. I was using 200mm PU-core panels in domestic construction design 15 years ago.

Impressive how much two people did on a Sunday.

that is thick insulation I bet the people will not hear anything out side when it is done keep well and safe thanks for the video

love the idea you were not filming "with all the cutting and dust" whilst the client had washing out on the line drying

Great video. How do you ensure that the cavity width is maintained as you build up? So that you don’t end up with a larger or smaller width in different areas?

I still use 100mm cavities with 90mm Eurowall + (the t&g stuff), which complies with the current regs 👍

Nice work guys, out of curiosity. Won't the insulation act as a route for damp to bypass the damp course onto the bricks above? Or does the insulation start above ground level?

Isnt PIR (0.022 W/mk) about twice as good as rock wool (0.040W/mk) ? So your cavity could be 80 or 90 mm instead of 150mm?

Why was Alex holding that shaving brush in the outro? 😂🤣 just kidding, nice work again lads. 👏

Just looked a esco house to build 300mm cavity ooh

Hi Steve and Alex. Some great videos of your work. Where are you guys from and what is your working radius?

Pleasure to see neat blockwork - I wonder what the regs. are on block specs. Given that they have upped the cavity insulation requirement, how much attention has been given to inner and outer leaf properties. Seems like an opportunity missed not to specify a higher insulating material for the building structure as well.

Great stuff as always. Might’ve missed it.. but does the footings need to be 50mm wider to account for the extra wall thickness?

My house has no cavity insulation and its blinking freezing in the winter. I would love 150mmm insulated walls

Pushed in ties 😲

There is a lot of sense in insulating for example uninsulated 15-20mm heating pipes in a boiler room waste up to a 6-7€ per meter in heating costs with 15mm pipe insulation wastage drops to a roughly 1-2€ per meter and 1 m^2 of windows generally waste heat as much as 5-10m^2 of equivalent wall. Biggest savings however come from insulating your roof as the heat likes to rise up. In general it's recommended to have a roof insulation thickness x1,5-2,0 compared to wall insulation. Pay back time in saved energy costs from added insulation used to be 5-10 years but with the rise of energy costs it's likely even lower now as it is. Here in Finland a minimum wall insulation is currently 300mm's of rockwool or equivalent insulation and 500mm's for roof/attic space.

Just a thought on this, the concrete blocks are not very good for insulation so you are relying on the 150mm wool. Instead of the inner leaf, if it had a timber frame then you could still get 150mm of insulation between a 50 cavity and 100 in the timber frame. Must have nicer neighbors than me to not be round when you were chopping the blocks on a sunday morning!

We do 8 inch cmu block with 4 inches of mineral wool, low perm air barrier, 2 inch air gap, and masonry veneer. Which ends about 2 feet thick or 609 mm.

Fantastic. Put some good windows in there and a well insulated roof and you could heat that room with a candle. Which is what you'll need to do now that natural gas will be unavailable going forward.

Nuts, the wider the gap, the weaker the wall.

I've always had 150 mill cavities 😂😂😂😂😂🤠🐎🐎 YEE HAW

We do 100mm cavity with 50 insulated plasterboards on our extensions same u value

On an extension I've just started new regs. B/c are letting me keep 100mm cavity but use 50mm insulated plasterboard to build instead.

Hi, i did 30 years on the trowel, big sites in 80' 90's subbie would come once a week with the wages and look you up and down, and if you picked up the level too often the foreman would say "put that fucking level down" and get it up.

Great job , we have poorly insulated housing in the Uk ..more insulation is better

Different regs for different areas, here we would have to cut in a vertical DPC where your blockwork meets the existing building.

Hi mate, question about your threshold/doorway detail, how come on this job youve built up the inner leaf where generally you run the slab right up to the outer leaf insulated upstand, and in this job did you insulate that bottom threshold cavity, cheers guys

100mm cavity then insulated plasterboard simple 😮

Comes down to diminishing returns. The first 50mm insulation is the most beneficial/cost effective. It then starts to drop to the point of pointless.

Genuine question why have 150mm cavity and then fill it with Rockwool which in my mind retains water if it was to get in also not be able to dry out because there is no open cavity to allow air to flow and breath

most new houses in Ireland have a 200 mm cavity

I had an old building to renovate, the walls were rubble filled which meant the insulation had to be on the inside, what a revelation. Insulated plasterboards on the exterior walls, insulated stud walling, insulated rafters (sloping ceilings) Add to that sound boards & fire boards. It all added up to 2 really warm, quiet and cheap to heat 1 bedroom duplex flats. From my experience, I don't know why all homes are not insulated this way, why heat up interior breeze block walls, I was able to use 24kw boilers, which barley came on, even in winter.

It’s simple, just built with timber frame and insulate between the studs. That’s how most the developed world builds and the vast majority of this country. It’s done like that for this exact reason !

You can still use 100mm cavity we use 90mm t&g rigid insulation bats. The problem you will find is you can’t get window boards wide enough for the inside

I always though insulation has to have an air gap to the outer leaf, doe this not allow damp to soak through the block?

hi gents is there a reason why you only do 1 skin at a time n not both at same time cheers looked brill

Would you still need a 150mm cavity if you used 90mm Kingspan K106 Phenolic partial cavity fill insulation and Wraptite taped joints?

Simply Red ! Living in a box 😂

Nice craftsmanship! Do you also leave some small ventilation gaps at the bottom and top on the outside wall, for exhaling the moisture?

No cavities in mainland Europe. They use solid blocks with trapped air providing much better insulation properties.

I think there have been various reports raising possible cancer concerns from breathing in the fibres. There are lots of reports of the insulation soaking up water and becoming more of a hindrance to insulation than a help.

Good job, well done. 150mm cavity makes the wall stronger or it's about improving thermal efficiency?

Its great having all of this insulation for the winter, in the the summer, on a day with no breeze, your front room becomes an oven. 30°c outsude equates to 38° indoor temperatures!

This isn't my area of expertise but, presumably, with the 150mm gap, the external dimesions have to be bigger to get the room size you want. Or you end up with tiny rooms.

The reveals are bad enough in my extension with 100mm and dot and dab. I have to catch a taxi to open my windows as it is

I recently built a house with a 200mm cavity 😕 was a nightmare building off band stands overhand 😳 all heavy concrete blocks too here in the west of ireland

At 14:15 He just flicks the excess mortar behind him without looking. It lands perfectly on the mix. *nods with approval*

Fantastic video. What device did you use to capture this? Was it a Go-pro?

I once did 18cm thick isolation.... that were some long wall ties. I can tell you that.😂

❤Milwaukee❤️

Have you learned nothing from the recent fuel crisis? If our homes had been properly insulated there would have been no fuel crisis. If our homes had 200mm of PIR foam or 300 of Rockwool our fuel bills would have been 20% of what they were. Then there is the carbon saving as well. I have been designing houses and extensions to well above the Building Regulations requirements for 50 years and builders have been telling my clients that the extra insulation was a waste of money but those clients have saved a fortune over the years and, on top of that, they have had a much higher level of comfort than a Building Regulations standard home. Have you not noticed that the "economic" level of insulation keeps rising? A 300mm insulated cavity is about the optimum though so if you build with that your customers will be OK for ever. I'm pleased to see that you are using dense aggregate concrete blocks though as they give a good level of thermal mass to store heat when the heating goes off.

Would you believe we are doing 200mm cavity in Ireland for pumped insulation