Posted by: @batpred

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As for funding, if there's not enough, it needs to be found.

Yes, just like funding for the health service, the armed forces, potholes, low cost housing, education, social care, triple locked pension benefits for overprivileged pensioners, benefits for those unable to work..., Need I go on, and all while the media scream for lower taxes.

Posted by: @jamespa

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Posted by: @jeff

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The ECO insulation scheme was a disaster with the majority of solid wall installations failing. Whatever letters were not worth the paper they were written on.... I don't know if these were from the LPA or the installers or some other body? 

 

Thats true, but in this case the only option is restitution because its already happened.  Perhaps thats why the announcement has a focus on restitution.

 

 

The issue I have is that the announcement is about trying to put in place better oversight and penalties for future installs because of all the issues, but I don't think it goes far enough. 

Take a new ECO scheme for solid wall insulation for vulnerable people where the government pays 100% of the cost again of the install as with the old scheme. Or any scheme for vulnerable and low income households. 

These are some of the most vulnerable people in society. Extra oversight is needed for these ECO grants to make sure people don't end up in a worse situation than when they started. Some of the stories are truly heart breaking. Over 90% of these solid wall installations failed. I would personally prefer any people in these categories who get grants should get free independent checks as part of the grant so that failures are minimised for this cohort of people. People like me can afford independent checks if they are properly designed and implemented etc. but it needs formalising and advertising as a proper option around any grants.

On a general point I fear a wild west as heat pump installations ramp up with saldly many people getting caught out. 

Posted by: @jamespa

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Posted by: @batpred

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As for funding, if there's not enough, it needs to be found.

Yes, just like funding for the health service, the armed forces, potholes, low cost housing, education, social care, triple locked pension benefits for overprivileged pensioners, benefits for those unable to work..., Need I go on, and all while the media scream for lower taxes.

What I mean is in case inspections are being missed due to lack of funding, that is a false saving. 

But I have also seen cases where consumers lack education about what they are buying and training needs funding. I found enough good sources of info in the energysavingtrust and similar but perhaps not enough for something like a heatpump retrofit project. 

Posted by: @jeff

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On a general point I fear a wild west as heat pump installations ramp up with saldly many people getting caught out. 

My view is of a very gradual growth of heat pumps, as our gas/electricity cost ratio is not a strong enough incentive. 

Also much simplification of the process needs to happen for much larger numbers.  

Posted by: @jeff

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The issue I have is that the announcement is about trying to put in place better oversight and penalties for future installs because of all the issues, but I don't think it goes far enough. 

Take a new ECO scheme for solid wall insulation for vulnerable people where the government pays 100% of the cost again of the install as with the old scheme. Or any scheme for vulnerable and low income households. 

These are some of the most vulnerable people in society. Extra oversight is needed for these ECO grants to make sure people don't end up in a worse situation than when they started. Some of the stories are truly heart breaking. Over 90% of these solid wall installations failed. I would personally prefer any people in these categories who get grants should get free independent checks as part of the grant so that failures are minimised for this cohort of people. People like me can afford independent checks if they are properly designed and implemented etc. but it needs formalising and advertising as a proper option around any grants.

On a general point I fear a wild west as heat pump installations ramp up with saldly many people getting caught out. 

 

I would agree that vulnerable households (whether financially vulnerable or mentally vulnerable) need extra support.  I am less sure about anything else. 

Sadly this is the construction industry (I include heat pumps in this).  The construction industry is, in many places, dodgy.  It always has been and I fear it always will be.  Building regulations provide fairly solid protection in principle, but are difficult to use for the average person.  We introduce consumer protection schemes (eg MCS, Trustmark etc) but sadly they dont seem ever to be enough.  Are the people who designed all of these schemes incompetent, maybe they were but if so I see no reason to believe future people designing such schemes will be any more competent.  More likely is that bad actors are just very canny in the way they operate and remarkably adept at scamming and working round the regulations.

So how is a mass independent check magically going to fix what all the other schemes have not fixed, and where on earth are the people to staff it (who need to be top of their game) going to come from.  Indeed would it be better if these people were doing installations not overseeing them with some tick list?

In most areas of life Caveat Emptor applies, if it didn't we wouldn't need review sites, Which etc.  Is this any different?  If it isnt any different then maybe customers need to get used to finding out a bit about the product they are buying, just as they will find out about the phone, TV or car they choose.  If they dont want to thats fine, but Im not sure its possible in that case for the state to guarantee that what they get is fit for purpose, beyond passing laws (ie building regulations) and funding courts.  They can pay the fee, invite their building inspector round and get him/her to provide an assessment.

Im not arguing against further measures, but at the same time Im not arguing for.  Im also acutely aware (as I have said several times on this forum) that the british public predominantly vote for politicians who are ideologically opposed to government intervention and make no secret of saying so.  For any system to work it has to be developed and supported over a long period of time, longer than 5 years.  If past voting habits are anything to go by the probability of having a pro-intervention government in place for more than 5 years is low.