Two Portsmouth pensioners are struggling to keep their heads above water after unsuitable cavity wall insulation landed them with a huge £4,000 redecoration bill. Devastated couple Stan and Vena Auld’s Wymering home became damp and mouldy following the injection of the insulation material. Cowboy builders knocked them up and persuaded them to cash in on a government insulation drive.
But their home has been seriously blighted and they haven’t the money to sort things out. Stan told Streetwise that a mandatory pre-suitability survey was not carried out before Domestic and General Insulations Ltd of Worcester carried out the insulation in 2012.
The firm went bust two years later, just as rising moisture levels in their three-bedroom 1920s home became noticeable and stained walls riddled with unsightly black mould patches began to appear. But while the retrofit cavity wall insulation (RCWI) drive was government policy, it was neither controlled nor overseen from Westminster.
The distinction means that victims of inappropriate insulation cannot turn to the government for help or compensation. Instead, the Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency (CIGA) was set up to pay for repairs caused by botched work, but repeated Streetwise appeals on the couple’s behalf for compensation have been rejected out of hand. The Aulds are part of an emerging great cavity wall calamity.
An independent survey of 250,000 properties by thermal imaging experts IRT Surveys Ltd concluded that RCWI had left problems in half the homes it surveyed. With more than six million properties treated since 1995, their research confirms 1.5 million homes may have been seriously put at risk of significant internal damage.
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Cowboy builders leave Portsmouth pensioners with huge £4,000 bill – and a mouldy home
Two Portsmouth pensioners are struggling to keep their heads above water after unsuitable cavity wall insulation landed them with a huge £4,000 redecoration bill. Devastated couple Stan and Vena Auld’s Wymering home became damp and mouldy following the injection of the insulation material. Cowboy builders knocked them up and persuaded them to cash in on a government insulation drive.
But their home has been seriously blighted and they haven’t the money to sort things out. Stan told Streetwise that a mandatory pre-suitability survey was not carried out before Domestic and General Insulations Ltd of Worcester carried out the insulation in 2012.
The firm went bust two years later, just as rising moisture levels in their three-bedroom 1920s home became noticeable and stained walls riddled with unsightly black mould patches began to appear. But while the retrofit cavity wall insulation (RCWI) drive was government policy, it was neither controlled nor overseen from Westminster.
The distinction means that victims of inappropriate insulation cannot turn to the government for help or compensation. Instead, the Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency (CIGA) was set up to pay for repairs caused by botched work, but repeated Streetwise appeals on the couple’s behalf for compensation have been rejected out of hand.
The Aulds are part of an emerging great cavity wall calamity.
An independent survey of 250,000 properties by thermal imaging experts IRT Surveys Ltd concluded that RCWI had left problems in half the homes it surveyed. With more than six million properties treated since 1995, their research confirms 1.5 million homes may have been seriously put at risk of significant internal damage.
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