The Mark Group and cavity wall insulation

ohbilmey

Had a guy from the Mark Group at the door tonight. He's coming back tomorrow as I didn't have time to talk to him earlier on. Stay in a 4 in a block and my upstairs neighbours are keen to have cavity wall insulation installed but I need to agree too. In principle I'm quite keen but I have a few questions if anyone can help? I'd like to be a bit clued up before he comes back tomorrow.

Has anyone had dealings with the Mark Group - they seem to be quite well established but have mixed reviews all over the Internet?

The guy seems to think I'd be entitled to 100% grant - I'm not convincedd though. I do get working and child tax credit and child benefit but it looks like household income needs to be less than £16K - anyone had experience of getting a grant for this?

How does getting the grant work - he said that my supplier (British Gas) would provide the grant - does the Mark Group apply on my behalf to them for it?

He said he'll just need my NI number for the grant application - is he likely to want bank details - if I'm getting a grant can't see why he would need them and I always refuse to give bank details to folk on the doorstep!

Finally, would you recommend getting this done, assuming I can get it for free or at least for not too much - just bought this place a couple of months ago and don't want to make a big mistake on doing stuff to my first real home

Any advice appreciated!

Joewise

Hey,

May I ask what did you do? As we have just had a call from someone from Mark Group.

Thanks

sancho

Not sure about the Mark group, but we had ours done after contacting e-on. They gave us the entire grant and it was free.

We get child tax credit, not working tax credit, and our household income is more than 16k

moneysaver

We had The Mark group do our CWI 13/01/12, not very impressed. We got ours done through N-Power who contracted The Mark group.

We had to get them to come back, noticed insulation coming out of kitchen extractor fan when we turned it on. It turns out it had not been sleeved properly & The Mark group had not checked this when doing the work.

N-Power sent an independant inspector out today to verify the work, he noticed some of the underfloor air bricks are blocked with insulation. It will be another visit by The Mark group to rectify this, as they should have been checked & sleeved prior to the insulation being done.

I am not very impressed to be honest, very shoddy work.


Moneysaver

nicka99

by coincidence I had CWI fitted yesterday by the mark group on 2 of the original elevations of our house (the rest have extensions on).

I didnt pay a penny despite receiving no benefits but the offers seem to change by the day - see here http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-cavity-loft-insulation
mine was through EDF

the surveyer seemed quite knowledgable and reassuring but the installers were not ! they just seemed keen to get the job done as soon as possible and get on to the next one. the quality of the work seemed OK but Im sure they could have taken more care to avoid damaging the corners of the bricks when drilling the holes. My concerns came at the end of the job when one installer said he needed to test the boiler (presumably for carbon monoxide with reduced ventilation after CWI) despite it not even running at the time since it takes a while to fire up !
He then presented me with a form to sign in a few boxes in which I was agreeing to certain checks being made. the top part was the 'pre-install checklist' but since this was the end of the install and the first Id seen of it it was pretty pointless. he hadnt even ticked any of the items on the pre or post install checklist so I basically made him walk round the house with me to check all was well. his demeanour suggested he really didnt want to be doing this. I pointed out one dislodged brick and brickdust all over the single storey extension and flat roof which they had to sort. they brushed the brickdust down the gutter and made a poor attempt at straigtening and repointing the brick but by this point I was keen to seem the back of them before they did any more damage !

I asked about the air bricks to which one of the 2 installers said he didnt even know we had any (!!!) and the other said he'd checked them and they were fine (not blocked). Im going to check this myself tomorrow as they did not instill confidence at all and I dont want rot in my floor joists !

maybe they are all this shoddy in this industry due to time pressures and I hope my fears of cold spots, mould and rot remain just that and dont come to happen !

on the plus side the house felt much warmer last night !