Tormuja Khatun’s house in Luton is being consumed by black mould, mushrooms and dry rot after the botched installation of external wall insulation.
Her family say they have been warned it could cost more than £100,000 to repair, and describe the situation as a "nightmare".
Mrs Khatun’s case is far from unique. A growing number of MPs are worried about the impact on their constituents of poorly installed insulation, while Citizens Advice is calling on the government to "urgently fix" regulation of the sector.
The government urged anyone with concerns about their insulation to engage with Trustmark, whom companies who carry out work under government schemes must be registered with.
Mrs Khatun is 84 and recently had a stroke. Not far from where she sits, large growths of dry rot fungus are feeding off the floorboards.
It turns out the EWI is not to blame per se, but I guess detailing like flashings at the top of it?
...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.
2.0 kW/4.62 MWh pa in Ripples, 4.5 kWp W-facing pv, 9.5 kWh batt
30 solar thermal tubes, 2MWh pa in Stockport, plus Congleton and Kinlochbervie Hydros,
Most travel by bike, walking or bus/train. Veg, fruit - and Bees!
Terrible for a lady of that age to be going through this.
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7kW ASHP
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Deep insulation, air leak ct'd home
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Joeboy wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 9:54 am
Terrible for a lady of that age to be going through this.
Unfortunately this is the sort of thing that happens with many government initiatives. So many stories of badly fitted insulation, badly specified / installed heatpumps etc does nothing to improve public perception of these things.
Living the dream in Austria.
Uk property 3.75kW PV linked to 3kW inverter.
The words "Government grant" tends to get the feeding frenzy of cheap installers grabbing the cash and then folding - remember the Mark group in the early solar FIT days ?
Similar sorts of stories for ASHP installs here and there amongst the more reputable companies.
You would think government would be wise to this by now ????
CWI sometimes exposes prior issues with water dripping into a cavity, but it’s the CWI that gets the blame.
Similar to that EWI in a way, just water ingress and poor attention to detail, insulation getting the blame.
I saw the story on the news, very distressing for the family.
4kWp solar, EV
Diy: MVHR, 150mm EWI, 15kWh batt, 2.4kW GSHP & no gas
I am glad I have gone for the CWI here after thinking about EWI .... it is more expensive but I am also finding quite a few unknown issues that we are rectifying as we go and as I am here for the building process I am able to make sure that what is going back is to the standard I want!
Overall I think I will actually have ended up with a better solution simply from fixing the issues that were not apparent before we started taking down the outer course.
We have a poorly insulated (none) solid wall, 3 storey semi-detached.
Anyone got any idea of the cost of external wall insulation? It's something we have looked at, but always been put off by expecting the cost to be shockingly high!
Richard77 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 2:06 pm
Sorry to hijack the thread.
We have a poorly insulated (none) solid wall, 3 storey semi-detached.
Anyone got any idea of the cost of external wall insulation? It's something we have looked at, but always been put off by expecting the cost to be shockingly high!
I was quoted around around £7K-£8K just for the gable wall end of a two story semi-detached house - Total area was about 40m2 I think from memory but they were not expecting to have to change the roof overhang .... would have been quite a bit more if that was needed. My gable wall end was simple too only 2 doorways - no windows etc.
Richard77 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 2:06 pm
Sorry to hijack the thread.
We have a poorly insulated (none) solid wall, 3 storey semi-detached.
Anyone got any idea of the cost of external wall insulation? It's something we have looked at, but always been put off by expecting the cost to be shockingly high!
Richard,
Check out the great British Insulation scheme to see if you qualify for subsidised or even free insulation ?
I was talking to our plasterer who was skimming my plasterboard in the bay (over IWI) and around the new windows... he said "Why don't you just DIY with battens (I think CLS "on edge," drilled through and screwed to brickwork) and clad the outside?
As far as I can see I wouldn't put in a vapour barrier, just let moisture keep moving through the old 9" brick wall and on out through the fibre lagging batts until it met the inside of something like larch cladding. Brick "slip" panels would be nice, but I wouldn't want a wet inner face...
I'm planning a big eaves extension anyway...
Eaves.jpg (293.96 KiB) Viewed 1373 times
Who was it here who talked about an EWI course? Are there cheap hotels nearby?
2.0 kW/4.62 MWh pa in Ripples, 4.5 kWp W-facing pv, 9.5 kWh batt
30 solar thermal tubes, 2MWh pa in Stockport, plus Congleton and Kinlochbervie Hydros,
Most travel by bike, walking or bus/train. Veg, fruit - and Bees!
