Chapel Court, Tuckingmill, Camborne, Cornwall
Chapel Court is part of Coastline Housing Association housing stock; built in the mid 1980’s on the site of an old Methodist Chapel. It is constructed of cavity blockwork with a render coat finish, under a concrete tiled roof. Some walls have been coated in a paint finish to the internal courtyard area but most remain unfinished.
In the past, Coastline Housing has often chosen to fit external wall insulation to the older properties in their portfolio. However, Chapel Courts’ location, with its frontage immediately on the pathway, and the gable ends close to the site boundary, meant that a different solution was required for this “hard to treat” property.
Coastline Housing chose to use Peter Cox’s DryWall Thermotek, safely applied by Peter Cox technicians, and with minimum disruption to residents, to reduce the heat loss from this building. Before treatment with DryWall Thermotek, the external walls of the property were cold, as a result of the existing porous render retaining moisture from wind driven rain and then cooling following moisture evaporation.
Below are some thermal images showing the property before and after treatment, and the difference in surface temperatures between DryWall Thermotek treated areas and the existing painted walls, which we were unable to treat.
Within a couple of hours following the application, the surface temperature of the walls had already increased by several degrees on the front elevation, which is north facing and shaded. The arrows show the same locations of the Chapel Court sign and a ventilation outlet in the front façade.
Revisiting the site a week later with the thermal imaging camera allowed us to gain an even better insight into the effectiveness of the DryWall Thermotek Masonry Protection Cream. The areas of wall which had been painted remained much colder than the areas of adjacent render that had been treated with DryWall Thermotek.
