Cavity Wall Insulation has been installed in 14 million homes across the UK as part of the massive scheme to reduce energy use and energy loss and ultimately reduce the carbon footprint of the UK.
What a great idea Cavity Wall Insulation seemed to be, and get it installed in your home for free, fantastic! Saving 1/3rd on your heating bills, AWESOME! Or so the offerings sounded.
If all parties involved done exactly what was expected of them, Cavity Wall Insulation could probably be a really good thing and deliver as it was expected. But human intervention has turned this upside down, back to front AND inside out.
14 MILLION homes have had Cavity Wall Insulation installed, as many as 400,000 properties that should NEVER EVER have had it installed have had it installed not knowing it was not designed for their properties, and the contractors putting it in should have known better, and the guarantee agencies that did issue a guarantee should have absolutely known better and had systems in place to stop this.
Steel Frame properties, Timber Frame Properties and Many Pre-Fab Construction Properties do not have a BBA test pass for the Cavity Wall Insulation to be installed in these types of houses.
Properties that could potentially be suitable should have had a robust pre-survey check carried out to ensure the property was absolutely suitable to have Cavity Wall Insulation installed, and those that were suitable but needed some repairs prior to the install should have been advised what repairs they needed and why, educating the home owner as to the pros and cons, but many sales people and installers were on commission and price per job and so the lack and negligent attitude means up to 6 million homes potentially have big issues, either showing now or will show in the coming years.
Small checks that make a massive difference to the install of CWI and its lifespan are:
- Checking an active damp course was present and functioning and consistently 150mm from the ground.
- Checking the condition of brickwork and pointing and ensuring no cracks or faults.
- Checking window seals were right and tight.
Not major jobs and not work that would cost thousands of pounds, but could save a home owner a massive mess of damp and mould and other issues which in the end could cost tens of thousands of pounds to extract the wet cavity wall insulation and repair damp walls and woodwork and replace internal furniture and fixtures damaged by failed wall cavity insulation.
Claims are uncertain if they will be successful. Many installers have closed up their businesses. Oh, there’s a guarantee we hear you say. Unfortunately, many guarantees in our opinion aren’t worth the paper they are written on. They only cover the extraction of the insulation, and only if the guarantee firm agrees the contractor was at fault, which more often than not they disagree and blame th homeowner for lack of upkeep and repairs of the property.
More worrying is the fact that the insurances the contractors relied on when they registered with the insurance agencies now tend to have a very mixed bag of policies and the excesses on the policies range significantly. Some have £1000 excess; some have £5000 excess, some have £10,000 or £15,000 excess, and astonishingly some have £1 MILLION POUNDS EXCESS, so making claim is going to be extremely difficult.
So, your home is damp, cold, wet, smelly, paper and paint peeling, clothes and furniture being affected, health being affected, and what should have reduced your energy bills by 1/3rd – is now actually costing you more to heat.
Because your walls are damp and cold, the U-Value of your homes is reduced and the heat from inside will be leaving your house far quicker through the wet walls, so your heating is turned up to compensate, and not only costing you more, it’s wearing your boiler out quicker and the environmental issues are more significant than before insulation was installed.
There could be an option to make a legal claim, but these can be costly and take 2 years to resolve with no guarantee of success. It means it’s down to you to sort your house out and swallow the costs of doing so.