No big surprise

[Lurker]

Pity we all had to pay for this in the first place.

Tens of thousands of homes insulated under government schemes need repairs

Insulation programmes costing billions of pounds have led to widespread problems with damp and mould.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Raymedullary]

And more than a few "plasterboard tents" as well if my experience in such matters is anything to go by... seen plenty of them over the years!
And they often get missed by building control.

 

[PAC1]

It is a sad reflection on our construction professions that so few know how to retro fit insulation in a dwelling so that this did not happen. It is not rocket science.

 

[Pete Maddex]

Get rich quick for the installers, fold the company and walk away minted.


Pete

 

[AJB Temple]

This was on you and yours on radio 4 today. It was a tad exaggerated I felt but nevertheless it is an eye opener.

 

[AndyP]

I would hope that construction professionals would know how to do the job properly. Problem seems to be anyone, seemingly, can set themselves up to do this work and take advantage of those homeowners who are unable to filter out the con artists.

 

[Lons]

What Andy said.
The companies were legit but they hired in teams and gave them minimum training before sending them out. When they did my Mil's bungalow a number of years ago they made a right mess, just threw it across and let it unroll itself. One of the young lads said most of their pay was on the number of completed installations.
Typical half co_ck plans with the best of intentions but no idea of control.

 

[RogerS]

It is a sad reflection on our construction professions that so few know how to retro fit insulation in a dwelling so that this did not happen. It is not rocket science.

In an ‘old’ dwelling, surely. There were some good people on You and Yours highlighting this.

 

[Trevanion]

Get rich quick for the installers, fold the company and walk away minted.

This has happened time and time again, there should be better protections in place and ways to prosecute people that do this, some of whom are repeat offenders.

Solar installers working under grants who offer guarantees for 10+ years and then go bust after fitting so they don't have to honour any guarantees, Cavity wall insulation companies who did thousands of houses with a product that was well known to trap moisture in the walls and cause horrendous damp issues, bust. Now we're onto the Eco scheme where installers are fitting products with horrendous and potentially dangerous results (bad heat pump installations), and the external insulation that goes with that scheme is just completely unsuitable for a good amount of buildings in the UK.

Nothing seems to work anymore, everything costs millions or billions to do, and it either gets shelved or goes massively over budget.

 

[duke]

This has happened time and time again, there should be better protections in place and ways to prosecute people that do this, some of whom are repeat offenders.

Solar installers working under grants who offer guarantees for 10+ years and then go bust after fitting so they don't have to honour any guarantees, Cavity wall insulation companies who did thousands of houses with a product that was well known to trap moisture in the walls and cause horrendous damp issues, bust. Now we're onto the Eco scheme where installers are fitting products with horrendous and potentially dangerous results (bad heat pump installations), and the external insulation that goes with that scheme is just completely unsuitable for a good amount of buildings in the UK.

Nothing seems to work anymore, everything costs millions or billions to do, and it either gets shelved or goes massively over budget.

Five years ago I was doing a major renovation for a beef farmers home. Up drove solar panel sales men which wanted to do a deal installing panels on 80 acres of his land. We both looked at each other with a smirk, ok he said when you go bust before the warranty ends who removes all the faulty equipment. Oh but there is a trust fund set aside for such issues the snake oil salesmen said, yea right get the f of my property.

 

[fuse]

I had the 1970s extension cavity walls insulated under the gov scheme a few years back.
I had an overwhelming choice of one installer who sent a pimply youth to survey.
I had to point out wall by wall as he couldnt grasp the reason why half timbered walls didnt need doing.
I told him the actual cavity walls were standard spacing leaves but he insisted on drilling a hole to put a tape measure through.
The tape cleat wouldnt go through but he had tin snips at the ready to cut it off.
The tape end ,with its new found freedom, duly retracted back into its case.
I found him a bigger drill and verified the space with my own tape,and he went back to his car and spent a good twenty minutes calculating.
He energetically bounced back with ,I cant remember exactly,a figure of over 30 grand.
See ya.
The receptionist unexpectedly phoned back that afternoon and quoted an arbitrary £1500
The grant halved that and the work was eventually done once the Boris bureaucracy had run its course.
No problems so far....

 

[AJB Temple]

Tunbridge Wells council have some sort of solar partnership where residents can get a kind of collective quote. We've participated a few times to see what is on offer. They are very cagey about the quality of the products and they want you to part with some cash as a desposit before they will do a survey (no chance from us). I would say in two years prices have halved.