Cold calling - house insulation work!!

Pincher

Miller Pattison is raking in the government grants.

We were supposed to get free loft insulation, and it took months to get an appointment. The surveyor refused to deal with the tricky bits, and just wants to do the lay and go easy parts. When the installer turned up, he's an independent subcontractor who was given a strict time schedule for the job. The whole system is geared towards a superficial quick fix.

For loft insulation, you can buy the rockwool yourself, and do a better job. For cavity wall, you have no choice but to get somebody to do it.

macman

Are you saying that you have no loft insulation at all? And you ask 'is it worth doing?'
Are you serious?

markharding557

I would expect a 1994 built house to be already quite well insulated

Dave_N_3

I've signed up yesterday -
I live in haringey, London - The surveyor was from Miller Pattison (coldcalled) - Lucky my mum who is over 70 lives with me - got it all for FREE - 3 bedroom 55m2- I've Just got to wait to see what the job turns out like -17th April-
Its gotta be better than nothing

The_FD

macman wrote: »

Are you saying that you have no loft insulation at all? And you ask 'is it worth doing?'
Are you serious?

No i'm not saying that. I floored my loft and put in insulation then - so it would only be the cavity wall insulation that would be of any interest. But as I said earlier - our house is already warm so that was why I asked the question, is it worth doing?

macman

Cavity wall insulation is certainly worth doing, about a third of heat loss is through the walls in an average home. You should save at least £100 a year by doing so-however a 1994 house may already be insulated.
Just because your house is warm doesn't mean it's well insulated-it just means you are turning the heating up more than necessary.

losabrigos

Just had my loft insulated by Miller Pattison, to say I'm not impressed is an understatment. They cancelled on me twice because of "illness and van problems" then when they turned up on the third arranged visit I was told by the technician that they did not provide the covers for low voltage lighting nor did they pin the insulation to the wall of a dorma bedroom. Both of these things were promised by the surveyor, that's the reason I signed up with them. Called the office to complain was told by the supervisor that the surveyors don't work for them. They are maybe not directly employed by them but are sure as hell representing them and getting you to sign a M P contract.
After taking 3 days holiday to get the work done I allowed them to go ahead, to be honest I could have done a better job myself, the insulation looks like it has been thrown down. Will be writing to complain officially.
Maybe I was just unlucky as a friend has had hers done by them and said it was fine.

Ex_Gas_Guzzler

I dealt with these people the people they said to carry out the work were awful, they were fooling around and laughing, rude and unhelpful, left mess all over the place, broke a tile by standing on it over a bay window one of the worst experiences i have had with tradesmen at home by far. I would not recommend them. I won;t go into the full details but just take my word for it, find someone else.

Nell34

Like others have mentioned, Miller Pattison are in with some government scheme. For us it was through the Energy Savings Trust.

Cold-called at first, to do a questionnaire. All seemed ok. Surveyor then visited to assess for loft insulation and cavity wall. A bit disorganised to get appointments, but all seemed fine. We noticed them doing quite a few properties in the area.

I cannot fault the loft insulation installers. Polite, quiet workers, unobtrusive and cleared up after themselves. Great.

However, we are absolutely devastated after a visit from their cavity wall insulation guys. The appointment was changed twice. Dodgy story the first time, then a confession they'd messed up the diary the second time. (Personally, I prefer honesty, everyone makes mistakes).

But they left our house full of dust, inside and out. There was no extraction equipment used. They drilled SEVEN holes in the wall inside our porch. Nobody had warned us they would be in the porch and the installers didn't warn of the mess. I can't tell you how upset we were to see what they did.

And a vent had to be put in the living-room wall as we have a gas fire. Again, enormous amounts of dust coating everything in the room. Did he have any dust sheets? Well, I would laugh if I could. He had one small dust sheet, which he used to sit on as he drilled the wall!!!!!

My partner came home from work and we both spent the next four hours cleaning up. And it's still not finished. Thank goodness we are reasonably fit. I dread to think what would have happened if, say, this had been our elderly neighbours' house. There is no way they could have dealt with that mess without help.

It is a total disgrace that any tradespeople should make such a mess in someone's house and leave it like this.

As I said earlier, the loft insulation team was excellent, so maybe we have some rogue elements here. But I absolutely recommend you never consider Miller Pattison for cavity wall insulation.

DVardysShadow

The_FD wrote: »

We have just had a chap from a company called Miller Pattison offering to do loft insulation for £199 and/or wall cavity insulation for £149 round at the door, cold selling. He claims that 25 houses in our street have signed up with him - which is about 1/2 of the total houses in our street.

He claims there are large grants available from the government, this is the reason he can do it so cheap.

We live in a house built in 1994, 5 bedrooms, detached (so quite large) red brick built. It is not a cold house - bills are not excessive. £50 per month for gas & £50 for electricity, but my wife is at home all day as we have 2 young children with 3rd on way, so in winter the house needed heated and electricity being used most of the day.

1st of all - is this a legitamit company? or is it a scan? - We must decide by Monday!!!

2nd - if all above board - would it be worth doing?

Thanks

Never ever go with a company which sets a time limit for an offer.

As for his claims about the number of houses, ask him how big his t*dg*r is and scale everything he says accordingly.