Insulate Britain and many politicians seem to think that the solution to the UK’s energy crisis is simply to insulate old housing stock. And, no doubt, many old properties could benefit from insulation – done well, in properties suitable for the correct type of insulation, and the benefits should be obvious.
Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case, and where public schemes with abundant money are involved, the result is often highly unsatisfactory.
Today I read a very recent report on the BBC websitei about problems of this nature in Wales. Not surprisingly, given that there is a massive push, not least by the BBC, for insulation to be seen as the answer to our prayers, the report was buried in the Wales section of the website and, so far as I can see, has received no prominence at all (clearly it’s much less important than, for example, “China’s Tencent restores Fight Club ending after backlash”, which is prominent on the BBC website at the moment).
Anyway, headed “Insulation work left Caerau residents with freezing rooms”, the report supplies us with a sorry story of funding from a local authority and energy companies to assist with insulation work ,ending up with things going spectacularly wrong:
The public funding aimed to make homes warmer and cut heating bills in Caerau, near Maesteg but has instead worsened the situation for residents.
Rhiannon Goodall, 38, said the insulation had “absolutely devastated” the home she shares with her husband Wayne and daughter Lili-May.
“The plaster is just falling off,” she told the BBC’s Politics Wales programme.
“My house feels like it’s falling down around me because of the amount of damp that it’s caused.
“The insulation that they have put on the outside is now causing so much water on the walls that the water has nowhere to go but inside.”
Damp started coming through into bedrooms at Julie Goodridge’s house after it was insulated.
“It’s freezing in there,” she said. “The bedrooms – I’ve never seen anything like it.”
On and on it goes – ruined homes and distraught residents. It’s going to cost a lot of money to put right. All because of this:
Insulation was fitted to 25 homes in Caerau as part of a £315,000 contract awarded by Bridgend council to a company called Green Renewable Wales (GRW). Most of the money came from the Welsh Government’s Arbed scheme, designed to make homes more energy efficient in the poorest parts of Wales.
If this was a one-off report of an isolated problem, then those shouting for insulation, insulation, insulation might, perhaps, be worth listening to. Unfortunately, such is not the case.
Here’s another BBC online reportii, this time from 2017: “Cavity wall insulation ‘a scandal’, Arfon MP claims”. It’s the same sorry story, but this time on a much bigger scale. Unfortunately, as yesterday’s news illustrates, lessons rarely seem to be learned:
Inappropriate cavity wall insulation in homes has become “a scandal”, a Welsh MP has said.
Arfon MP Hywel Williams claimed millions of homes had the insulation installed by successive government-backed schemes which has led to damp, mould and condensation.
He called on the UK government to take responsibility for the “dreadful mess”.
In just three short paragraphs, we read of a scandal affecting (allegedly) millions of homes – a dreadful mess.
Or how about this from 2018? “Disastrous Preston retrofit scheme remains unresolved”iii. It is, it seems, the same old story:
A disastrous failed external insulation contract run under a government energy saving scheme has affected up to 390 homes in Preston with water penetration, mould and damp.
Four years on the problems, some of them severe, have only been rectified for some of the affected households. Occupants, many elderly and on low incomes, have in some cases reportedly been forced to pay for repairs themselves.
The installations in Preston took place under the Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP), which required energy companies to fund energy saving measures in disadvantaged communities. And although changes were made to subsequent government schemes, figures from Ofgem suggest that some installations carried out under the newer Energy Company Obligation (ECO) programme are continuing to fail.
Such is the scale of this shambles that there is even a websiteiv devoted to pursuing cavity wall insulation claims on behalf of those harmed by them. As usual, it will probably be the hard-pressed taxpayer picking up the tab.
Ventilation
Lack of ventilation, of course, is one of the problems associated with inappropriate insulation, leading to damp and related problems. For the past two years or so, however, ventilation has become increasingly important for another reason – coronavirus, covid-19, call it what you will.
It’s difficult to know what to make of the internet and media storm surrounding plans supposedly mooted by the Scottish SNP/Green government to cut the bottom off school doors to assist ventilation. Perhaps they’ve been massively exaggerated and seized upon unfairly by political opponents. Or perhaps another simplistic solution has been trotted out without sufficient thought and understanding of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Either way, this is how the Daily Record reported itv:
The Fire Brigades Union has demanded an urgent meeting with SNP ministers over concerns a controversial proposal to improve ventilation in schools could be unsafe.
It was revealed this week that councils would be handed extra cash from the Scottish Government in a bid to improve air flow in classrooms – a move considered vital to limit the spread of coronavirus among pupils.
Among the ideas was a plan to chop the bottoms off from doors in classrooms which have the highest CO2 readings – a proposal that has since been ridiculed.
In a letter to MSPs on Wednesday, education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said about 2,000 classes needed improved ventilation across Scotland, at an estimated cost of £4.3 million.
Air filters and mechanical fans, at a cost of £1.6 million and £2.4 million respectively, would be employed – along with £300,000 spent to “undercut” doors, which was seized on by opposition politicians.
Conclusion
Apart from the fact that insulation and ventilation don’t seem to be comfortable bedfellows, there is another, very basic but very important, point arising from all this. That is, people who peddle simplistic solutions should rarely be given much credence. Little in life is simple. When politicians announce that they are opening the cheque book, there will be people there ready to take advantage, and not all of them will do a thorough, professional job. The Law of Unintended Consequences is the one law that politicians cannot – indeed, do not need to – legislate for. It just is, hanging over their every pronouncement, waiting to strike, to undermine the best of intentions and to ensure that things will go wrong. Sadly, despite the number of laws they put on the statute book, this is the one law they never seem to understand.
By the way, do Scottish classrooms not have windows that can be opened?
Endnotes
i https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60243114
ii https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-39602540
iii https://passivehouseplus.ie/news/health/disastrous-preston-retrofit-scheme-remains-unresolved
iv https://www.cavitywallcompensationclaims.co.uk/
v https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/fire-brigade-union-demands-meeting-26142183
Climate Scepticism 
I should add that being a sceptic means we challenge all forms of simplistic thinking. The discussion led by Alan Kendall on Jit’s article “Failing To Find An Obvious Answer” is a fine example of thinking about an issue instead of just providing a knee-jerk thumbs-up. Alarmists could learn a lot by inter-acting here.
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Mark, if insulation is forced upon me, I’ll only end up opening the windows so that I can breathe. Our place is not that well insulated, but it’s warm enough (it’s mostly solid brick walls – someone up the road had exterior cladding fitted but it’s hideous). It has though never been too hot, even on the three days per year when Brits wish for a breeze.
I look at the new identikit box houses that are springing up everywhere and wonder a) how they can be so expensive, b) who wants to live in them. The tiny windows that many of them have would drive me to distraction I fear. And all the roads lead in circles. Sure, they’re well insulated – but at what cost?
A sorry tale of failed insulation works. I’ll keep the draught, if I may.
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By the way, no doubt there are similar tales of woe from those who have succumbed to the invasion of the infernal heat pumps and found them inadequate to the job.
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Acoustic insulation is also a thing to be considered in schools. A number of years back, my wife’s school decided to jump on the open office bandwaggon and create an open environment within the school buildings. Consequently, all classroom doors were removed. It didn’t take too long, however, before the inter-classroom noise disturbance forced the refittment of all doors. As you say, the law of unintended consequences.
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Whatever happened to commonsense and trial and error?
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Beth. I do believe that common sense in schools is now vigorously rooted out and replaced by dogma. As for trial-and-error: haven’t got the time (or the staff). Anyway the kids think they know everything important. Think climate change, green-ness and all things woke.
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Jit: “if insulation is forced upon me, I’ll only end up opening the windows so that I can breathe.”
I read somewhere a couple of years back, that the plan to conform to Net Zero meant windows that *can’t* open (and are triple-glazed). All air coming from the outside would be pulled in by fans, and heat-exchanged both in and out, to minimize losses (or gains, if it’s hot). I don’t think this really conforms to the kind of ‘healthy ventilation’ that is recommended for covid (or health generally!); uncomfortable bedfellows indeed, as Mark points out. Not to mention the energy to keep it all running must seriously erode the gains. And besides which, how appalling to live in a house where you couldn’t open the windows; I’m not a big fresh-air freak but I think I’d die of claustrophobia!
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Jit, Andy, perhaps we should form a new protest group. I just can’t decide on the name – Ventilate Britain or Ventilation Rebellion?
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Mark, I’m ashamed of you, a man of letters, not realising that “to ventilate” also has a meaning involving making small tubular holes in people using a firearm. The gun toters amongst us need no encouragement.
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Haha Mark. To be consistent with the green movement in all its contradictions, I feel sure you need to found both – plus mafioso Kendall’s Provisional Wing of Ventilate Britain. And this links back for me to Beth:
I’d been thinking of trial and error in the last few days, both in the medical arena (not going there right now) and in the nuclear power one. One of the points I was most grateful to be made to think about last year in Matt Ridley’s excellent How Innovation Works was how, unlike so many of the key innovations of the past, like the steam train and powered flight a la Wright Brothers, which were a continous process of trial and error, often by some unlikely people (the Wrights ran a bicycle repair shop), Nuclear Power is just too big to be able to make the small mistakes that are vital to innovation. Yet no sooner had I been linking these off-topic thoughts to Beth’s comment in my mind I was reading this on the BBC web site: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy.
ITER is Big Science is the fullest sense but this was a small(ish) pilot or prototype. Has Matt Ridley been proved wrong? Which I assume he’d be delighted to be. The jury’s no doubt out.
Oh dear, off topic again. 🙂
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Richard, I’m quite happy to wander off topic. If you hadn’t posted it here, I’d probably have said something about it at Open Mic. Potentially, it’s quite an exciting development.
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Richard/Marc. Seemed an awful lot of trouble to go to to be able to heat water in 60 kettles!! And then get to brag about it on BBC News. And then to hand over the expertise gained to the French!!!?
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Not just the French but the Chinese and Russians. The BBC-led bragging is I agree a real turn-off, given our experience of the highly mediocre in the climate/energy fields generally getting the same treatment. But … potentially very exciting.
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Don’t know much about the topic of JET but I did visit the site with a host of students on a field trip led by a colleague who taught an undergraduate module about alternative energy. What is important is that it stands for Joint European Torus, in other words it’s not British, and secondly it’s a research tool, the design was never meant to be used as a source of energy. That will come from a much larger design currently being built in the south of France using information gained from JET (hence my wicked misleaderment). The news yesterday was scandalously overblown.
Several years ago when I read up on the subject, Europe’s main competitor was the USA with its program based at MIT (but then we knew little about the Chinese)
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Meanwhile:
“UK must move faster to insulate homes – climate chief”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60290876
“The UK must do more to insulate the country’s draughty homes, warns Britain’s climate change chief.
Chris Stark, head of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, told the BBC he rates government policy on insulation as “very poor”.
Insulation, together with renewable power, is the way out of the current energy crisis, he says.
Two-thirds of homes, or 19 million, need better insulation, according to government data.
That raises an obvious question: if it is such a good idea, why aren’t we all doing it?
The key issue is the cost.”
Er, perhaps there is another issue, as highlighted in the article, which the likes of the BBC (despite their significant reporting of the issue in the past), Chris Stark and the rest of the CCC, and Insulate Britain simply ignore. Mind you, that’s not to say that cost isn’t an issue:
“Lifting Rob’s home into the “B” category meant improving the lagging in the roof, installing more double glazing, insulating the floors as well as putting insulated cladding on some inside and outside walls. The makeover cost £36,000.
Rob says they now use 40% less gas for heating, which is good news as energy prices soar. But, at current energy prices, it’ll take at least 20 years to cover the cost.
Retrofitting homes is an even greater challenge for the providers of social housing.
I visited Jean Davidson in her one-bed council flat in Blackpool. The council has spent £2.5m making the 75 flats on her estate more energy-efficient – £33,000 a piece.
They insulated the entire block, took out her little porch and put in triple glazed windows. Her front door was changed to block drafts and some of the exterior walls of the blocks and the entrance area were insulated.
Jean’s home is certainly very cosy now – “perfect”, as she describes it. But the council estimates it would cost £125m to bring its 5,000 homes up to this standard.”
Nice that Justin Rowlatt visited Jean Davidson’s cosy, perfect flat. I wonder why he didn’t visit the ones that have been left running wet and covered in mould? Not a mention anywhere in the article of the issues with insulation. Beware of folk peddling simplistic solutions, especially those who only tell half the story.
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Alan:
This was clear from the BBC article so I called it a pilot or prototype. Was this the small step needed to make fusion great again? That I can’t judge.
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Richard, it gets worse. ITER, the next stage in the European nuclear fusion story, being built in France, is a collaboration between the EU, Switzerland and the Ukraine. The U.K. only has associate status because of Brexit.
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Re fusion, I once visited a fusion facility in California, I think run by Lockheed Martin from recall. They seemed to have two or three different projects being worked, but one room held (so I was told, didn’t see inside as they were about to fire it) a large ring of lasers focussed on a single point, to generate the initial high temperature required. The thing that was memorable, was that when they did fire it, the ground shook!
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No that was fracking Andy 😉
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Alan
ITER is indeed being built by that consortium, but ongoing experiments in other tokamak installations in the US, UK China, and possibly others, are feeding in data to ITER.
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Let’s say that the present typical bill is, or will be shortly, £2000. Let’s further assume that half of this is for gas, half for leccy. That’s £1000 per year on gas.
Ok, good. Now let’s earn ourselves a nice little 40% saving on our gas. Hooray! We’re geniuses, genii, whatever. Bang! That’s a saving of £400, in our pocket, every year, year in, year out, until, er, we die, or move.
Well, let’s say we stay here with our £400 per year. We’ll soon have paid back the outlay… er, what was the outlay again? £36,000. Ok, so how many years will it take to…? 20 years ish, right?
36,000 / 400 = 90 years
Gosh, well that was money well spent. Whose idea was that? Well at least if we do move, our house will be worth £36,000 more than before… won’t it…?
Insert the sound of crickets.
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Mark,
>”Two-thirds of homes, or 19 million, need better insulation, according to government data.”
More to the point, two-thirds of homes are probably ill-suited for better insulation. For example, even loft insulation is far from straight-forward. Some years ago, I had my insulation upgraded in accordance with modern guidelines, but I only got away with it because the bloke who did it was prepared to flout the minimum height restriction rule (my roof is raked at a very shallow angle). Anyone else with a house similarly designed would, or should, be denied.
My brother used to work as a surveyor who would assess houses for suitability for all forms of insulation. He tells me that the UK housing stock, both old and new, is in such a poor state that the government’s plans are doomed. I recently posted a comment on Cliscep providing more detail but, due to a combination of bit rot and brain rot, I can’t remember where. 😦
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Haha brain rot. And I was about to coin heart rot. But that is not intended to be so funny, given the context. Some time today. [Correction: tomorrow]
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John: Is it perhaps your comment on Open Mic on 27 Oct 21 at 1:04pm? I’ll even show you how I did that for a used fiver.
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From the Guardian letters page:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/17/double-trouble-with-insulation-in-older-homes
“I am a retired architect with some experience of dealing with historic buildings. Your article had no reference to the potential problems that retrofitting insulation can have, not only on the building itself, but also, with external insulation, on the character of the neighbourhood.
It is essential that we tackle the climate crisis, but the solution of external wall insulation should be treated with caution. There are many papers which advise that retrofitting wall insulation can add problems rather than solve them, particularly with resulting damp. Loft insulation, double glazing and draughtproofing are preferable.
Phil Ebbrell
Mold, Flintshire”
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Is Phil really from Mold? That seems a wind-up 😉
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Talking of ventilation, here’s a timeline I don’t understand:
H/t Dominic Cummings today, who comments:
Emphasis in the original.
He goes on to give other examples of the experts being wrong, as he sees it.
https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/snippets-3
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“A chart produced by parliament’s climate change committee illustrates the eye-watering costs involved in implementing the most effective measures.
Nearly 11m homes are suitable for loft insulation, it says, at a cost of between £440 and £740 each. That’s £8bn for a 4% reduction in heat demand for a semi-detached home. An 18% reduction could be achieved with external wall insulation but that would cost up to £8,590 per home, or nearly £65bn.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/19/where-britains-journey-to-insulation-went-wrong
And yet, despite that, and all the problems caused by insulation touched on in my piece, we still get this:
“Labour says it will insulate 2m houses in first year to cut bills
Ed Miliband says move will ease energy price crisis and reduce dependence on Russian gas”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/19/labour-says-it-will-insulate-2m-houses-in-first-year-to-cut-bills
“The shadow energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said that, if elected, Labour would aim for 2m household upgrades in the first year of a decade-long £60bn scheme that could save households £400 on bills annually.”
Insulation is fine, in principle, but it has to be done carefully, and not every home is going to be suitable for this simplistic solution – worse still, many of the “leakiest” homes are the ones that will encounter the biggest problems from insulation. I do worry that XR, Insulate Britain, and the bold Ed and others seem to be obsessed with childlike and naive “solutions” that might cause more problems than they solve.
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Dunno why, but us serfs find ourselves hyper-ventilating over various forms of insulation!
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Ouvrez la fenetre…
Literally n figuratively.
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‘n – tsk!
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Tis’ strange Beth, but us in your own antipodes have the strong belief that your turnip field dwellings demand insulation against the rays of the ever-broiling sun, and not against stray cool breezes. Your cork-dangle chapeaux are legendary and a necessity.
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Our daub and wattle turnip field dwellings have verandas ,Alan.
Gosh, haven’t seen cork hat for ages They seem to have gone out of fashion of late.
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“Why bankers close their ears to the ‘climate nut jobs’ talking about the end of the world”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/11/technocrats-cant-think-beyond-six-years-whatever-climate-nut-jobs-think
This article contains a lot of the usual alarmist assertions:
“…There is no other side to a collapse. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is talking about the rapid acceleration towards breakdown. You can see it coming in the monstrous heatwave in India and the wildfires in Siberia. Once average global temperatures increase beyond 1.5C, “tree die-offs, drying peatlands, thawing permafrost and other self- reinforcing feedback loops [will] release additional carbon emissions, amplifying the warming further”. Climate change will spiral “beyond the ability of humanity to influence it”….”.
However, this was the sentence that caught my eye, since it spills the beans on stuff that we “deniers” have been saying for ages – it turns out that a Guardian journalist might agree with us about some of it:
“So many of the schemes to reach net zero strike my cynical mind as either utopian – the technology isn’t there – or too expensive for electorates to bear.”
It was followed immediately by:
“Home insulation, by contrast, is authentically popular. It would halve heating bills and deliver tangible benefits to citizens. ”
I’m not against insulating properties, per se – my own house has roof insulation, and we have just fitted new double glazing to replace the old (once state-of the art- but now 3 decades out of date) double glazing. I don’t, in principle, mind the Government funding insulation projects. However, I do object to the lazy trope that home insulation will halve heating bills, full stop, without qualification. Many homes aren’t suited to many types of insulation. As the article above should make clear, many (publicly-funded) insulation projects have proved to be catastrophic for the people who live in the affected properties. Life isn’t as simple as the green lobby would like us to believe. If it was, we would all have signed up a long time ago to their “solutions”.
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“How the green agenda fed the Grenfell disaster”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/06/14/how-the-green-agenda-fed-the-grenfell-disaster/
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“People warned not to use ‘cowboy’ foam insulation firms”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63607793
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“Is the Net Zero Push For Home Insulation Bad for Our Health?”
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/11/23/is-the-net-zero-push-for-home-insulation-bad-for-our-health/
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“UK government to introduce grants to make homes more energy efficient
Three-year scheme to provide up to £15,000 for middle-income households will start in April 2023”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/25/uk-government-to-introduce-grants-to-make-homes-more-energy-efficient
Those numbers seem to imply an acceptance that it’s going to cost at least £20,000 per property. Why target middle earners, anyway? They’ve already benefited from the subsidies for their second (electric) cars. Poor people seem to be ignored, as usual.
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“‘Rebound effect’ cancels out home insulation’s impact on gas use – study
Research in England and Wales shows that conservatories, extensions and changing behaviour cancelled out any savings”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/01/rebound-effect-cancels-out-home-insulations-impact-on-gas-use-study
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“Energy crisis: MPs call for ‘war effort’ on insulation”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64168571
But then they (the MPs) get pretty much the whole of the agenda in, with net zero awareness of the problems caused by net zero:
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“Net zero by 2050 in England and Wales equals ‘extra 2m years of life’
Study points to ‘substantial reductions in mortality’ and significant health benefits if policies implemented”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/24/net-zero-by-2050-in-england-and-wales-equals-extra-2m-years-of-life
Needless to say, I’m unconvinced, but do read it and make your own mind up. The link to the study is here:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(22)00310-2/fulltext
Four takeaway points for me:
1.
The “as long as” is a heroic assumption, given the mess that many government-funded insulation schemes have made to date. And since insulation alone represents well over 40% of these imaginary extra life years, badly installed insulation, leading to mould and associated adverse health issues, could result in a significant reduction in life years in reality.
2. We are told:
That strikes me as a hugely simplistic conclusion. Replacing travelling by car with walking and cycling in the cold and wet north of the country in winter (and sometimes summer!) months, could result in adverse health impacts.
3. The Guardian doesn’t mention it in its report, but the study summary says that one of the health benefits will arise from
, which suggests to me an implicit acknowledgement both that warmer temperatures (in the winter at least) are beneficial.
4. The report also acknowledges that:
Funnily enough, the Guardian report doesn’t mention this massive caveat.
(Disclosure – I have edited this comment to remove something stupid I included in it, due to posting in a hurry before rushing out for the day).
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To return to the eye-catching number:
Given that the UK has a population pushing 70 million, and that 2050 is 27 years away, the dubiously claimed extra 2 million life years actually equates to something like nine and a half hours extra per capita per annum. Big deal.
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You have to search long and hard to find this on the BBC website – it’s far from top news. The BBC regularly pushes articles about people advocating insulation, on the Science and Environment section of its website, but stories like this don’t make it there:
“Caerau botched insulation homes still awaiting repairs”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64663008
But it’s OK. It’s only our money they’re wasting and people’s lives and health they’re damaging.
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Mark, I may be thick as a brick, but I think all (brick houses?) had air bricks as part of the build in the “old days”, which were there for a reason.
newer builds also have window vents you can open or shut.
if you try to insolate a home so no heat leaks out, all the water vaper from showers/cooking/body heat/etc has nowhere to go.
May be a bit simplistic, but then so is “insulate britain”
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“UK insulation scheme would take 300 years to meet government targets, say critics
Exclusive: National Energy Action says progress on energy efficiency is too slow and not well targeted at fuel-poor households”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/09/uk-insulation-scheme-would-take-300-years-to-meet-its-own-targets-say-critics
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You have to dig down on the BBC website to find this:
“‘Government insulation scheme ruined my home'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-65543897
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Meanwhile…
“Scottish Government pauses energy efficiency scheme during cost of living crisis
New applications for the Warmer Homes Scotland scheme will not resume until October, when a revamped replacement begins”
https://inews.co.uk/news/scotland/scottish-government-pauses-energy-efficiency-scheme-cost-of-living-crisis-2334122
Indeed – as poor Mr Paterson has discovered.
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“‘I have to scrape mould off the bedroom walls'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxwwr7vyrj0o
Every two weeks Zoe Godrich scrapes the black mould off the walls of her children’s bedrooms.
She says her house now resembles a squat. ”It’s absolutely heartbreaking because I can’t provide for my children’s basic needs of a safe warm home.”
The mould took over after she had her Swansea home fitted with cavity-wall insulation three years ago. She says that within weeks, water was constantly running down the walls ”like a little waterfall”.
The BBC can reveal that cavity-wall insulation fitted under government-backed green energy schemes could have failed in hundreds of thousands of homes because it was not installed properly...
…Since 2008, more than three million homes have had cavity-wall insulation fitted under green energy schemes set up by the government. Energy suppliers were responsible for inspecting 5% of them to check for installation quality.
Figures compiled by energy watchdog Ofgem seen by the BBC suggest that insulation in hundreds of thousands of these homes could have failed because it was not installed properly...
…the problems that Zoe has faced raises questions over how well the scheme is working. Both Installers UK, which carried out the work in 2021, and City Energy, which secured the grant money, were Trustmark-registered….
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Mark – watched that story on BBC news today – from your BBC link we get this partial quote –
“Since 2008, more than three million homes have had cavity-wall insulation fitted under green energy schemes set up by the government. Energy suppliers were responsible for inspecting 5% of them to check for installation quality. Figures compiled by energy watchdog Ofgem seen by the BBC suggest that insulation in hundreds of thousands of these homes could have failed because it was not installed properly. In total 15 million homes have had their cavities filled.”
Mmm – not sure is 3mil got it for free & 12mil had to pay, but whatever, they tiptoe around the “under green energy schemes” which are driven by UK climate net zero policy has many “Unintended Consequences”
Think a quote from your head post sums things up –
“Apart from the fact that insulation and ventilation don’t seem to be comfortable bedfellows, there is another, very basic but very important, point arising from all this. That is, people who peddle simplistic solutions should rarely be given much credence. Little in life is simple. When politicians announce that they are opening the cheque book, there will be people there ready to take advantage, and not all of them will do a thorough, professional job. The Law of Unintended Consequences is the one law that politicians cannot – indeed, do not need to – legislate for.”
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“Why modern British homes are getting mouldy”
https://unherd.com/newsroom/what-net-zero-advocates-get-wrong-about-british-housing/
...Rising energy costs and aspirations to minimise climate change are now driving a new campaign for retrofitting insulation to homes that were explicitly designed to be breathable. Believing that they were upgrading their homes, householders took up government grants for spray foam insulation in lofts, which by blocking air flow, caused moisture to build up, rotting roof joists and making their houses unmortgageable.
The same issues are now growingly apparent with foam cavity wall and other retrofitted insulation: effectively, taxpayers’ money has been wasted on making British homes increasingly unliveable. While the intentions were good, the results are disastrous: the entire insulation campaign, which has even seen well-meaning activists resort to blocking roads, is a scandal in the making. Low energy solutions that may work well in continental Europe’s largely dry climate cause major problems which, when applied to Britain’s Atlantic climate, their advocates still struggle to understand….
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Mark,
So true. When we got the energy performance certificate on our Victorian house in Lincolnshire, the person who did the survey recommended underfloor insulation – filling all the spaces beneath the floor boards to prevent drafts. If you know the first thing about Victorian houses it’s that they have VENTED subfloor spaces to prevent the joists and floor boards suffering from damp and wet rot! Needless to say, we didn’t take his advice but I imagine that thousands of people did fall for this nonsense. The building materials in a well maintained Victorian or Edwardian house will last for hundreds of years even in the damp British climate, but all it takes is meddlesome, ignorant, ‘save the planet’ insulators to initiate a destructive cascade that will quickly rot the bricks, mortar and wood construction of the house in a matter of a few years.
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Mark: Congratulations on being followed by UnHerd on this area of our ‘wiki’, over two years later. (Not the only area for which this may well have been true but it felt worth saying this morning.)
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“How Net Zero leads to mouldy homes
The UK government’s insulation programme has been an all-too-predictable disaster.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/06/10/how-net-zero-leads-to-mouldy-homes/
...In many ways, the insulation debacle is an allegory for the broader Net Zero agenda. Activists campaigned for it and politicians agreed to take it on, without anyone stopping to think whether or not it would work at all. The result has been a costly and damaging mess.
It’s no wonder that no one wants to talk about insulation anymore. That would mean acknowledging the damage that’s being done in the name of Net Zero. No matter how often the green agenda fails, our political class just can’t seem to let it go.
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“‘They encouraged us to insulate our home. Now it’s unmortgageable’
UK householders are angered by the discovery they cannot remortgage or sell their homes after installing spray-foam insulation to cut energy use”
https://www.theguardian.com/money/article/2024/aug/12/they-encouraged-us-to-insulate-our-home-now-its-unmortgageable
Jim Bunce thought he was doing the right thing for his purse and the planet: in 2022, as fuel costs soared, he and his wife decided to improve the energy efficiency of their house.
They discovered that the government had endorsed spray-foam insulation, a quick and unobtrusive technique by which liquid foam is spray-gunned into roof spaces and walls. Their loft was successfully treated at a cost of £2,800 and their gas bills duly fell.
Now, two years on, they have found that, by making their home more energy efficient, they have also made it unsaleable. “We are unable to borrow against it, or potentially to sell it, unless the foam is completely removed,” says Bunce.
The couple had hoped to take out an equity release mortgage to fund their retirement. “No provider will offer equity release on a property with spray-foam insulation due to fears that it damages roof timbers,” he says. “The removal will cost us £3,370 and, apart from the waste of money, there’s the environmental impact of 50 square metres of spray foam being sent to landfill.”
Thousands of other householders are in the same position. It’s estimated that up to 300,000 properties could be affected, some of which had government funding for the work.
A report published in March by the government’s Health and Safety Executive found that condensation could cause 25% of roof timber to decay within five years if spray foam is applied directly to roof tiles, or certain underlays. The general risks increase the further north the property is, because of colder climates.
I notice that we don’t seem to hear from Insulate Britain any more.
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“‘Botched insulation means mushrooms grow on my walls'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3zxx1gek1o
Eighty-four-year-old 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 concerned 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.
A government spokesperson urged Mrs Khatun and anyone else with concerns “to engage with TrustMark for a resolution”.
Mrs Khatun recently had a stroke. Not far from where she sits, large growths of dry rot fungus are feeding off the floorboards.
“Worry, worry,’’ she says as she points to the black mould that is growing on her sitting room wall.
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.…
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BBC News this morning: “Government to spend £22bn on carbon capture technology. Campaigners say the money would be better spent on insulation.”
Eco loons squabbling over how best to spaff taxpayers money up the wall.
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“Lenders reject homes with spray foam insulation”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqjrpv218r0o
Homeowners are struggling to sell or remortgage as some major lenders are rejecting properties with spray foam insulation, the BBC has found.
A quarter of the UK’s biggest mortgage providers will not lend against homes with spray foam in the roof, our research suggests.
It is estimated as many as 250,000 homes in the UK have this type of insulation, with much of it fitted under the previous government’s Green Homes Grant scheme.
“We were blissfully unaware of any issues to do with it until we put the house on the market,” said Wendy Rowe, whose family struggled to sell her late father’s home and paid thousands to have the insulation removed.
Some mortgage firms are reluctant to deal with homes with spray foam insulation due to concerns over poor fitting leaving moisture trapped and roof timbers at risk of decay….
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“‘Spray foam insulation ruined our house sale'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86qz9g59v4o
Homeowners say they feel “betrayed” and “conned” after struggling to sell their properties due to spray foam insulation fitted under a government scheme.
More than 160 people got in touch after BBC research found that a quarter of the UK’s biggest lenders are refusing homes where spray foam is found in the roof space.
Robbie Anderson told the BBC he felt “taken advantage of” after his house sale fell through despite having the insulation fitted under the previous government’s Green Homes Grant scheme….
...Estimates suggest as many as 250,000 homes in the UK have this type of insulation, with much of it installed under the previous government’s official scheme.
The Green Homes Grant scheme, which ran in England, saw installations completely subsidised for those on certain benefits.
But some of the UK’s biggest mortgage firms are reluctant to deal with homes with spray foam insulation due to concerns over poor fittings leaving moisture trapped and roof timbers at risk of decay….
Funnily enough, we never seem to hear from Insulate Britain any more.
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“‘Serious and systemic’ problems found in insulated homes”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70kr365d8xo
Serious and systemic problems have been found in homes insulated under government schemes, according to the Minister for Energy Consumers.
An audit of homes that have had external wall insulation since 2022 found ”widespread cases of poor-quality installations that did not meet the required standard”, Miatta Fahnbulleh told Parliament.
She added that 39 businesses have now been suspended from the government schemes as a result of poor-quality work.
Some 65,000 households in the UK have had solid wall insulation installed under two government schemes – ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme – since 2022.
All homes that have had external wall insulation fitted under the schemes would be contacted by the energy regulator Ofgem, the minister said, with repair work overseen by the regulator and the cost met by installers.
The audit, which was carried out by the independent organisation Trustmark found problems ranging from missing or incomplete paperwork to more serious problems such as exposed insulation and poor ventilation which, if not fixed, could lead to damp and mould. In some cases, serious health and safety concerns were raised such as wires not being fitted properly.
Last year the BBC highlighted the case of Tormuja Khatun, whose Luton home has been consumed by black mould, mushrooms and dry rot after the botched installation of external wall insulation. Her family told the BBC they had been warned it could cost more than £100,000 to repair and described the situation as a “nightmare”.
In total more than three million homes have been insulated under government schemes and the BBC reported last year that hundreds of thousands of them could have insulation that wasn’t installed to the required standard….
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Mark – wonder what the “installed to the required standard” is?
Seems to me there is a reason UK builders build cavity walls with air vents inside & outside (in older houses anyway).
Pump that cavity wall full of foam to keep the heat in & guess what – as climate scientists are fond of repeating – warm air more moisture with nowhere to go.
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“‘Mould, damp and decay’: Homes excluded from insulation scandal help”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c203rnepzexo
Homeowners who say their houses are being destroyed by unsuitable insulation fitted under a government scheme say action announced to fix it won’t help them – as the work was carried out too long ago.
The government found a “serious systemic” issue in homes fitted with insulation under two of its own schemes since 2022 – and ordered installers to put it right.
But that won’t include 93-year-old Margaret Chappell whose work was done in 2021 and now her house is consumed by damp, black mould and crumbling plaster.
The government said it would keep other schemes under review but Mrs Chappell said she and other residents were being ”ignored”.
“It’s as if we don’t exist. It’s appalling,” added Mrs Chappell, who has lived in her home in County Durham for 60 years.
She and 153 of her neighbours in the town of Chilton had solid wall insulation fitted after Durham County Council advised them to take advantage of a free government scheme.
They were told the work would help make their homes warmer and lower their energy bills. But Mrs Chappell, who suffers from chronic asthma, said that since then, damp has consumed her living room.
Her wallpaper has peeled off and the plaster behind it is saturated and crumbling.
“I don’t want to be sitting here, breathing in this dust,” she said.…
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Would bet the people who did the insulation work knew these problems would result.
It’s just another example of people at the top handing out grant money, with no clue.
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“Net zero insulation plan won’t pay off for 100 years, Government admits
Study reveals high cost of home improvement measures to meet climate change targets”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/04/05/net-zero-insulation-wont-pay-off-100-years-government-says/
Net zero insulation could take more than a century to repay in reduced energy bills, a Government-backed study has found.
Insulation was installed in 14 homes in Yorkshire, at a cost of up to £44,000 per house, for the research conducted by Leeds Beckett University for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
The £2.8 million study focused on homes with solid walls, which account for more than a quarter of British homes and are amongst the most difficult to insulate.
Overall, it found that the energy efficiency measures would not pay back in terms of reduced bills for many decades, and commonly more than 100 years.
The report said more savings could be achieved if homes were retrofitted on a major scale, such as through neighbourhood schemes.
But the findings highlight the challenge in the Government’s attempt to achieve mass retrofitting of homes to help it meet net zero – particularly in persuading richer households to fund their own improvements.…
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Beat me to it Mark…
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“30,000 homes fitted with botched insulation under government schemes, ministers admit”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8606gp4711o
More than 30,000 UK homes have had botched insulation fitted under government schemes putting them at risk of damp and mould, ministers have revealed.
It is the first time the government has documented the number of homes blighted by sub-standard work under ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme since 2022....
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The BBC have been reporting on this “botched insulation” for a few years now.
But as usual they are coy on what drove this stupid government scheme. There’s a reason house builders put in air bricks.
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Today’s update on this is truly shocking – and I really mean that. We knew it was bad, but this is terrible.
The BBC reports the NAO saying that 98% of external insulation jobs over the past three years (paid for by electricity customers being taxed by their suppliers) will lead to damp, as well as 29% of the internal insulation jobs. That’s since Mark’s original piece on this.
Fraud is rife, and a small % of jobs have created an immediate threat to life.
BBC link.
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Thanks Jit,
It makes for sobering reading. The Law of Unintended (but utterly predictable) Consequences strikes again.
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I love the way that the Guardian manages to blame the failures of a scheme (of the type for which it has long campaigned) on the evil Tories, who were doing the Guardian’s bidding when they introduced it:
“Almost all external insulation fitted under Tory scheme needs repair or replacing, report finds”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/14/external-insulation-previous-government-scheme-repair-replacing-report-finds
...The ECO and GBIS initiatives sought to tackle fuel poverty and reduce carbon emissions across Britain by requiring energy companies to fund the installation of energy efficiency measures in homes.
But, the NAO said, weak government oversight and inadequate audit and monitoring led to thousands of poor-quality installations, leaving homes at risk from damp, mould, blocked ventilation shafts and exposed electrical cabling….
The conclusion?
“Now we need to fix the system, not abandon it.”
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Just a quick reminder, Guardian:
“‘We’ll be hated, but it will stir things up’: Insulate Britain on what happened next – and being right all along”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/17/insulate-britain-on-what-happened-next-energy-crisis
…Long before the cost of living crisis and the war in Ukraine brought our energy system to its knees, Insulate Britain was making the point that home insulation was something the government could quickly act on. This could not be more urgent; Britain has some of the least energy-efficient homes in Europe and around a quarter of people in the UK say they cannot afford to heat their homes at all this winter. The National Grid has warned of blackouts. Keir Starmer has called for a “national mission to insulate homes”.
Last month, the autumn budget set aside £6bn to fund home insulation; this was followed with plans for grants of up to £15,000 to middle-income households to make homes more energy efficient. Insulate Britain welcomed the news, even though the plans will not kick in until next year. “If the government had started doing it last year, a lot of people would not be in fuel poverty,” Lancaster says. “A lot of people will die this winter who wouldn’t have if their homes had been insulated.”...
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To my pleasant surprise, BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours programme is having a call-in about this right now. There are some very sad and truly appalling stories. Interestingly, some of the callers have had foisted on them things like unwanted solar panels and heat pumps as part of the dodgy goings-on here. One lady, as well as having damp problems, has been left colder and is now struggling to afford her bills.
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Mark – thanks for that link back to that Guardian INSULATE BRITAIN article (had almost forgotten about “Insulate Britain” protests). Prompted me to have a look at the website to see what they are up to now.
1st – a few quotes from the Home page –
““History will vindicate the people putting their liberty on the line to try to stop the collapse of our life support systems. Please help to fund this courageous movement.” – George Monbiot, Author & Columnist“
“We need the government to insulate Britain’s homes to save thousands of lives and prevent economic and social collapse. Each year in the UK, hundreds of thousands of families are forced to choose between heating or eating, cold children or hungry children, and many 1000s die because they are too cold. Insulating the homes of Britain will save lives and provide warm homes while pound for pound making the most effective contribution to reducing carbon and providing meaningful jobs. Insulating Britain is the levelling up agenda writ large.”
“Sir David King (the former Chief Scientist) has stated in 2021 that “what we do in the next 3 to 4 years will impact the future of humanity”.
“”Those with the privilege to know, have a duty to act.” – Albert Einstein”
2nd – a few quotes from the Press page from August 15, 2025 –
INSULATE BRITAIN 7 LOSE ‘FAIR TRIAL’ APPEAL
Judge Grout, sitting at Woolwich Court did not recognise the defendants’ legal appeal that they are being denied a fair trial [1].
The seven, who are being prosecuted following their disruption of M25 traffic in 2021, had been granted permission to present legal submissions that they are being denied the right to a fair trial. The hearing was held at Woolwich Crown Court today, 14th August, 2025
The core of the arguments presented was that the defendants cannot have a fair trial within a Criminal Justice system that simultaneously protects politicians who are responsible for breaking international criminal law by pursuing policies that drive climate breakdown while also pursuing the prosecution of protestors whose motivation is to uphold these laws. Such a scenario, the protestors argued, represents clear institutional bias that inevitably prejudices their right to a fair trial.”
Well meaning people no doubt, but just look what happens when, as Jit says above “The Law of Unintended (but utterly predictable) Consequences strikes”.
Bet they will never say “maybe it is not as easy to Insulate Britain as we thought” but will say we bailed out the banks.
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“Net Zero destroyed my home: Father-of-one reveals how eco-friendly scheme cost him £250k and ‘ripped his life apart'”
Mail link.
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You have to wonder why some people never learn from the past/present problems or just ignore them – Clean energy spend should cut bills first – green expert – BBC News
Partial quote –
“A college aims to start training 200 new students in the coming months, to develop skilled workers needed in the transition to clean energy.
Those studying at Pembrokeshire College could then fill some of the 15,000 new jobs ministers hope will be created in Wales. But senior Welsh government advisor David Clubb says UK ministers plan to spend billions on “unproven technology” such as carbon capture, when the initial focus should be on home insulation to help bring down bills for the public.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said he stands by his pledge to reduce energy bills.
National Infrastructure Commission chairman Mr Clubb believes the initial focus should be Wales’ “oldest housing stock in western Europe” which he believes leaves many in fuel poverty.
“For Wales, probably the first thing we should be doing is looking at a programme of insulation, and UK government should be putting money into that,” Mr Clubb said.”
He has a good point about “plan to spend billions on “unproven technology” such as carbon capture” then shoots himself in the foot with the home insulation drive idea. As we all know, It works for some, but is a disaster for many. Not sure what the cost has been so far to insulate homes, but the remedial work to fix botched work will at least double that figure.
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“Homeowners plagued by damp urge government to fix ‘botched’ insulation”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8g3018krro
Homeowners who say that botched insulation under government schemes left them living in mouldy conditions are calling for an investigation into the problem to be widened.
One woman has told the BBC that damage from works to her home in 2013 has left her bedroom too damp to sleep in, and may be causing her breathing difficulties.
Around 280,000 properties in Britain were offered free insulation – either external wall or other types of solid wall – under government schemes between 2013 and 2025. Billions of pounds of public money was spent on the projects.
Earlier this month, the government said that 92% of external wall insulation put in place under these schemes over the last three years has at least one major issue….
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“Cutting home insulation funding will imperil UK’s climate goals, Reeves told
Energy firms and charities urge chancellor to avoid short-term fix that could also harm low-income households”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/08/cutting-home-insulation-funding-imperil-uk-climate-goals-reeves-told
Rachel Reeves has been told that cutting funding for home insulation at the budget would risk the UK’s climate goals and hurt low-income households in a joint intervention by energy firms, fuel poverty charities and environmental groups.…
…If the programme is reduced or cut entirely, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, could choose to reallocate money from the £13bn warm homes plan, much of which is earmarked to pay for subsidies for electric heat pumps.…[my emphasis].
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“‘Failings at every level’ resulted in botched insulation scheme, MPs told”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yp4qllxv1o
A botched net zero scheme which has caused damp issues in thousands of homes was the result of ”serious failings at every level”, a UK government official has said.
Last month, the National Audit Office found that 98% of the 23,000 homes that had external wall insulation installed under two separate schemes will result in damp and mould if left unaddressed.
Its damning report also found that hundreds of homeowners’ health and safety had been put at immediate risk because the insulation work had not been done correctly….
...The damage also applies to about a third of homes which had internal insulation installed under the ECO4 scheme and the Great British Insulation Scheme, available to residents in England, Scotland and Wales.
More than three million homes have been insulated under a variety of government schemes over the last 20 years. Billions of pounds of public money have been spent on it..…
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“The insulation scandal threatening Britain’s climate plans
The British government says it will force down bills and emissions by insulating millions of cold, drafty homes. That plan is unraveling.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/the-insulation-botch-threatening-uk-green-goals/
Damian Mercer thinks his business shouldn’t exist.
He drives up and down the country removing botched cavity wall insulation from people’s homes — some of it installed under government-backed schemes designed to fix the U.K.’s raft of drafty houses.
“Everybody thought: ‘Well. I’m doing it right … I’m actually having my insulation put in my house,’” Mercer said, his own mother and father-in-law included.
“I’ve been telling them for years that it will cause problems. And, as sure as eggs are eggs, they are starting now to have problems. But they are old school. [They think]: ‘The government [isn’t] going to lie to us.’”
The scale of those problems is only now becoming clear.
In January, the U.K. government suspended work with 39 companies over shoddy installation….
It’s a long article well worth a read. So many problems…
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