Will growing a Virginia creeper damage my home? However, as with all plants adjacent to buildings, the falling autumn leaves quickly build up a layer of damp compost at ground level and on sills. I would advise against growing any type of plant against the wall of a house. Q My 82-year-old mother has been living in an Eighties bungalow for the past 17 years. Recently, damp has appeared on the ceiling where it meets the wall. An insurance company surveyor who was inspecting another problem, namely a leaking pipe in the loft, said the damp was nothing to do with the leakage but was caused by the failure of the extra loft insulation to fully cover the roof space at the periphery - about 6 inches (150mm) short of the edge. When my mother called the people responsible for putting the extra insulation in, she was told that the gap had to exist or her timbers in the roof would rot due to a lack of fresh air. The advice was to purchase a room dehumidifier for the bedroom - is this correct or is she being palmed off? She had never had a problem with damp until the insulation was installed. DM, Doncaster A Loft insulation can cause dampness problems in a number of different ways, and it's impossible to diagnose the exact cause without inspecting the property. First, even readers who have had loft insulation installed "properly" - i.e. over the full width of the ceilings, and with extra eaves vents fitted - often report heavy condensation forming on the underside of the sarking felt and dripping down onto the ceilings. Because of the slope of the roof, this can run down to the eaves before dripping off, thus concentrating the dampness in these areas. Second, where mineral-wool or glass-fibre insulation has been pushed tightly into the eaves, it can cut down on the existing ventilation and add to condensation problems. Presumably this is the half-baked logic that the installation company used to brush off your mother's complaint - and yes, she has definitely been "palmed off." Loft insulation is supposed to cover the whole of the top-floor ceilings. Where there is a risk that it might block off existing eaves ventilation, then plastic vent sleeves should be laid on top of the insulation to allow a through-flow of air. Third - and I suspect this is what the insurance assessor was referring to - if a loft is only partially insulated, then the air in the rooms below will still become warmer, and thus able to hold more moisture. In other words, the relative humidity will rise throughout the dwelling. So if there are any uninsulated gaps on the ceiling, then these will be prime sites for increased condensation. I'm afraid your elderly mother is another victim of the government's "climate change" policy to stuff as much insulation as possible into everyone's lofts and walls, without any real understanding of the problems this can cause. And of course the public subsidy to schemes such as Warm Front has meant that much of the installation work is carried out by fly-by-night firms using unskilled labour. The damage caused to people's homes by this misguided policy looks set to become a national scandal.