Some years ago one of the major house builders was contracted to construct a large new build comprising mixed social housing, rented and some homes for sale.

Recently some problems have emerged and on investigation these have turned out to be more widespread and more serious than initially thought. Two thermal imaging surveys were carried out as the results of the first one could not be believed. They discovered missing insulation in walls and roofs, some roofs has no loft hatch access so could not be inspected either now or on completion of the original construction.

A very proactive group of owners has managed to embarrass the original builders who for fear of loosing their reputation are now carrying out major rectifications to the whole site most of which is under the control of a housing association using lorry loads of insulation, fitting hatches, making good missing cavity wall insulation etc

All this at their own expense before being sued or dragged through the mud in the media. I think it is all good but should not have been necessary, inadequate supervision, inspection and poor construction coming back to bite.

As I say, "it has started"

I once owned a new house where the roof space above the kitchen & utility was only accessible by crawling through the main loft, climbing up to where the two ridges met & then climbing down the 5m into the lower loft space above the garage & the two rooms behind. I didn't realise this until we'd been living there a while & I got suspicious of how cold those rooms were getting. When I finally did investigate I found all of the ceiling level insulation for the lower loft was still in the polyethylene bags in a heap in one corner. At least the builders had left me the insulation & I didn't need to carry it through the lofts...

David

.. good luck....

Jonti is spot on....
BCOs know that they have to 'play the game', or else the builders/developers will use AIs. This reduces the income stream for LA BCOs, they feel their positions are threatened, so they do not raise any issues....
Until 'customers' become more educated, as in the OP, the situation will only get worse, as developers try to cut corners to maximise their profits for their shareholders.

Maybe the building companies would do more to supervise their work (and less to actively subvert building regulations) if they knew buildings would face a thorough insulation and airtightness inspection and test with heat cameras, blower doors etc.

It would be expensive, but you'd only have to test a (truly) random sample on each development.

Posted By: owlmanThe annoying thing is if you are self building or doing a small spec job they, the BCOs are all over you.

Not my experience.

The only time I saw the BCO after I was out the ground was for sign off. Even that was pretty casual.