air blowing in through socket in kitchen

my brothers new house is traditional concrete cavity wall construction, with also cut stone on the outside for visual effect

there is 60mm kingspan between the cavity, and also a few centimeters of internal insulated plasterboard on the inside of the house

i noticed today when i unscrewed and removed a kitchen wall socket that there was a lot of cold air coming through it from the outside........

is this normal ?

i was expecting that there would be no air circulating between the cavity wall ...........

Should there space between the cavity wall be airtight ?

it could be coming through the vent where there should be a 4" inch pipe to stop the air leaking into the wall - check that out

if not that to fix the problem get an electriction to fit - a socket sealer gasket
http://www.energyfederation.org/consumer/product_info.php/products_id/2553

Hi Louis,

Why is a kitchen wall socket on the inside face of a cavity wall "open" to anywhere?
Surely you should be seeing the inner face of the inner leaf of blockwork with the wall socket seated in a hole in the insulated plasterboard.
Unless you meant to say that the wall is 225mm hollow block instead of 300mm cavity wall - 100mm inner/100mm cavity with insulation/ 100mm outer.

ONQ.

Thats a good point ONQ............ I'll check out later exactly how they have done it and report back, sounds like a bodge job might have been done.........

Looks like there is a little gap between the internal insulated plasterboard and the concrete block wall......
Nothing to do with air coming from the cavity...... however air is somehow getting in between the inner block and the internal plasterboard.

Looks like some slightly substandard workmanship has been done, obviously the insulated plasterboard should be fixed tight to the block, and also there should be no draught............better get back to the builder on this.....

Lucky my brother did specify a passive or very low energy build, because with the standard of local workmanship,it just wouldnt happen, the house is very far from airtight. !

LouisCribben said:

Looks like some slightly substandard workmanship has been done, obviously the insulated plasterboard should be fixed tight to the block, and also there should be no draught............better get back to the builder on this.....

Click to expand...

There would be a small gap between the insulated board and the block work if the insulated plasterboard was blobbed on..

Hi Louis,

Small interstitial spaces always seem to be throwing up something new.

Draughts can arise inside a sealed room because of air meeting a cold surface.
This is usually an ouside wall or a window, and the air starts falling and getting colder.
This creates a laminar airflow that will flow around small projections like window boards.
Placing heat souces like radiators under external windows is done in an effort to combat this.

You OTOH opened up into a small interstitial space full of cold air.
This may have simply created the right conditions for a draught to occur.
With a highly insulated house you could end up with the potential for a lot of draughts.
You could do a leak test on the house and a taper test to see where particular leaks occur.

ONQ.

[broken link removed]

I had this on my last house. As it was a dormer, I thought that it was coming from the attic down the cable trunking in the wall

Thanks

In my last post, I said that "lucky my brother did specify a passive or very low energy build", I was typing quickly, I forgot the word "NOT".

It wasnt designed to be a low energy build, although it far exceeds current minimum standards of insulaton

Thanks for the explanation on how draughts can occur even if a room is sealed..

On looking at the problem further, the problem is actually the same as Rokers problem, it is a dormer house, and the air is indeed coming through the trunking

I initally thought the plasterboard was not flush with the wall (I was wrong) the reasson I though this is because the builder cut out a hole in the insulation to make way for the trunking (not so neatly done)..........

Louis and Roker,

Just to say - and I've pointed this out before in relation to downlighters - the ground floor ceiling is supposed to be sealed to prevent the passage of cold smoke and fumes to the bedrooms and to have FR30 to allow alerted occupants time to make their escape.

Service ducts allowing cold air from the attic suggests that the sealing at 1st floor level may be compromised, which could have unfortunate comsequeces during a fire if it lets fire up into the bedroom area behind the plasterboards/warmboards. Similar sealing is supposed to occur around opes.

FWIW

ONQ.