Pete recently did an interview on BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours - which investigated a case history of failed cavity wall insulation.
Here is a brilliant case history of yet another of these contraptions that are sold by various people. You can even buy your own and fit it. All I can say is Caveat Emptor - Buyer Beware... Every case that we see is of a system that has been fitted and does not work.
They all concentrate salts around the wire and actually make what was mild condensation into rampant damp - the salts attract moisture, and the rest is history. In my opinion this stuff is complete and utter rubbish - it is a giant Con and your are being had...
The Lectros system has never been approved for use in this country. It is sold by a company known as Twistfix amongst others in this country - lots of pictures of complicated control boxes that tell you absolutely nothing, and wires, fittings, gadgets - quite amazing the rubbish that people will buy to stop a problem that is most likely no more than a bit of condensation!
Here is a YouTube video of the system that we inspected in a house recently. It is now turned off and being ripped out, so we can stop salts being concentrated round the wires.
We just surveyed a Welsh cottage, which was smothered in cement render and gypsum plaster. It had minor damp issues all over the walls, mostly condensation related, but worst of all, were weird circular brown blobs all over the bottom of the walls. These extended about 6 inches above the floor.
I broke away some of the gypsum plaster that was smothering and blocking the breathability of an otherwise perfectly lovely old cottage, and found - you guessed it - a load of stupid electric wires, which when investigated, turned out to be attached to a LECTROS electro osmotic damp course box.
The walls themselves were dry below the wires. They were dry above the wires - except in large patches all around where these stupid wires actually penetrated the wall. There seems to be some form of electrode sticking into the wall - wherever there was an electrode, there has been extensive damage to the plaster. On close examination, electrical charges in the wall have actually broken down the stonework, releasing iron molecules which have migrated outwards forming the concentric rings that are so typical of this ridiculous con. There was even a note on the wall saying 'This must always be left switched on'. As you can imagine the note was ripped down, the wires cut, and the stupid box pulled out of the electrical socket. The previous owners were conned out of heaven knows how much money for this ridiculous system. So - remember - LECTROS Electro Osmotic Damp Proofing Course - DOES NOT WORK! It is fraud - pure and simple.
This is the video of the system - so any poor unsuspecting member of the public can avoid buying these stupic cons. Have a look at this independent review of the LECTROS electro osmotic damp course by a scientist I know:
Independent scientific report on the LECTROS system