Urea formaldehyde cavity wall insulation.

[Paul Buckingham]

I'm trying to find some research papers or information on urea formaldehyde cavity wall insulation. Does anyone know of any information on how this material performs over time, there are many buildings insulated since the early 1970's and I want to find out if this CWI has broken down or degraded since it's installation. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Paul.

[Kate de S]

Paul I am interested in this too,  and indeed the general question of 'will our low energy buildings grow old gracefully?' so I have taken the liberty of asking your question on twitter - hope you don't mind! I'll pass on any answers if there is a response.

Kate

[David OLIVIER]

UF foam in the 1970s cracked, shrank and behaved badly from day 1. It didn't stop possibly a few million installations though.

I hope it has by now crumbled to dust, then one could re-fill it with PIR or PU foam and get a better U value and airtightness. I fear it is still there though.

[Paul Buckingham]

Proving it has degraded and then trying to get someone to refill the cavity is a big problem, no one will touch it because it can't be certified or guaranteed. I'm doing some research at the moment looking at UF foam insulation, I'm trying to get some proof that it has degraded (if anyone has UF insulated cavities in their house and you don't mind me knocking out a few bricks to take a look......  ). If there has been some research into this I would be very glad of a point in the right direction, I'm finding it very difficult to find any, particularly in the UK!

[Jean-Marc Bouvier]

May I suggest that you look to Canada where UF was banned in 1980

[Paul Buckingham]

Thanks for that, I have found one or two papers from Canada, mainly about health issues though, and also some materials research from Australia, but there doesn't seem to be much at all from the UK other than health! Is there a recognized problem that has been hidden away by the CWI industry or am I just being paranoid?   

[Kate de S]

Paul, just to point out (as you may have spotted) that Canadian Paul Marriott has posted a comment on the General Public Board (he's a non-member).

Cheers

Kate de S

[Paul Buckingham]

Thank,s Kate. I have already seen that post and I agree with you, he should join! I'll get back to him later.

Paul.

[fostertom]

What about the foam-in-void (not frontal-sprayed) variant of Icynene for the purpose? Icynene is water-blown PUR, stays soft and rubbery forever and sticks like hell. Its lamda is similar to ordinary EPS, but that can't be suspected of degrading, as there's no exotic blowing gasses in it, to leak away.

[Jeff Hood]

Hello from Jeff Hood of Icynene.  Re Tom's question above I can now report on a successful nondestructive insulation of a 1700's listed house in Scotland we performed in August in Aberdeenshire using our injection (pour) formulation.  The lath and plaster was very fragile but did not crack or burst while the foam was expanding.  As the building was listed we devised a technique to lower the foam from the loft into the wall cavity.  This work was conducted as part of a research program with Robert Gordon University who will be publishing more information.