BRIDGING COLD
| BRIDGING COLD
This has become a major problem with concrete finlock gutters due to central heating being installed in homes.
The bridging cold manifests as a black mark where the ceiling meets the wall, where wallpaper is coming away at the top as well as in bathrooms where tiles are dislodged.
In the summer it is not as great a problem but in the winter when the heating is on and the finlock gutters become very cold the problem is much worse.
The problem is caused as follows
1 The air inside the house will carry more water as the central heating raises its temperature.
2 The finlock gutters allow cold to cross the cavity and creates a cold strip where the internal wall meets the ceiling.
3 Condensation forms where the warm air meets the cold surface (on a much reduced scale of a mirror in a bathroom). In bathrooms it is much worse particularly in shower cubicles.
LINING CONCRETE GUTTERS CANNOT SOLVE THIS PROBLEM
Cutting gutters off does reduce this problem substantially as between the cold and the top of the wall a 22mm wood then a 18mm PVC layer is created.
WHERE GUTTERS HAVE BEEN CUT OFF DUE TO BRIDGING COLD IT HAS ALWAYS ELIMINATED THE DAMP |
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