In November 2022, Mrs Khatun had her house insulated under a government scheme known as ECO 4. It is designed to help low-income households make their homes warmer and cut their energy bills. Insulation boards are fixed to the exterior brickwork of a house and then coated in render.
More than three million homes in the UK have had insulation fitted under government ECO schemes, which are paid for by the energy companies, with the cost passed on to all consumers through their energy bills.
The BBC revealed earlier this year that hundreds of thousands of these homes could have insulation that wasn’t installed to the required standard. Within months of Mrs Khatun getting her insulation fitted, it became clear that this was the case in her house. A surveyor’s report shows how rainwater penetrated the house leading to the damp, mould and dry rot.
This is dreadful, don’t get me wrong, but that thumbnail is some compoface material
manualoverride@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It sounds like the company is offering to come back and fix whatever problem is causing the damp but the homeowner is refusing to let them fix it. Sounds like they’re just idiots.
The article doesn’t say what installation standards are not being adhered to. It’s not rocket science, you take insulation boards, you glue or screw or both to the house and you mesh ad render over the top. It sounds like whoever wrote this didn’t do much investigation.
Uranium_Green@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
My brother in Christ, how much do you know about housing? Renovations? Insulation? Mycology?
The standard that likely had not been followed was ensuring that the property was watertight to begin with.
The dry rot that is spreading through their house is effectively going to condemn it.
Your take of “hurdur, how hard could it be to do some insulation? you glue on the boards, mesh and render” is asinine at best.
Lots of these companies didn’t do their due diligence to ensure the suitability of the properties before installing.
Which then disproportionately effects people who are less likely to be able to afford repairs due to them already being on very limited lower incomes, the exact reason why they are getting this work done via these schemes.
I took wouldn’t want to trust the same company that put me into that position to be the one to rectify it.
manualoverride@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I know a lot about building and insulation. The most likely cause of this is pre-existing damp that was just exasperated by the insulation making it warm on top of the damp.
If there is any sign of “rising damp” the modern way of dealing with it is by installing a layer of DryRods, however if the insulation was installed during a particularly dry period there might not have been evidence of a pre-existing problem.
Other than that possibility it could be an unrelated pipe leak, physical damage to the insulation and render, or an issue with the guttering.
Finally cold-bridging where a portion of the envelope of the house is I insulated and forms condensation, this is pretty much the only issue which could be a mistake on behalf of installer, but even then it should be obvious and made worse by failing to open windows or turn on extractors when showering, drying washing or cooking.
Any of this information could have been in the article, it’s absence is suspicious. Whatever the reason the first thing you need to do is let the contractor investigate.