British Gas Free Home insulation
Discussion
Being a sceptical old bathplug I am always dubious about free offers.
British Gas say they will insulate my loft and put in cavity wall insulation all at no cost to me.
Has anyone used this service - I would appreciate your comments on whether they thought it worthwhile or regretted going ahead.
https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-saving-product...
Thanks
British Gas say they will insulate my loft and put in cavity wall insulation all at no cost to me.
Has anyone used this service - I would appreciate your comments on whether they thought it worthwhile or regretted going ahead.
https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-saving-product...
Thanks
Had both cavity and loft done. From memory, they have a max square footage that they do for free, for example a 3 bed house might be 20sqf and a 4 bed might be 30sqf etc (obviously not those sizes!!). Anything over their size, you pay for.
We are in a newish build 3 bed, so not big, and had to contribute about £30 in total. Well worth every penny!
We are in a newish build 3 bed, so not big, and had to contribute about £30 in total. Well worth every penny!
Sixpackpert said:
We had the walls done a few years ago
Just to be aware... my mum heard about this free wall insulation. Surveyor came out, all good, job was done.A few years later she was talking to someone and the topic came up randomly. "Oh, but it cant be done on wood-framed houses" (Which mum's is)
She calls the company up and yes - they say it shouldnt have been done. They had to come out, drill lots of holes in her brickwork and suck out all the stuff. She wasnt thrilled.
they have to achieve something like 75% of the entire footprint of the house.
they surveyed my house (recently bought, built 1926 and basically I had zero insulation in the two attics we have)
thought I was onto a winner- but the roof design meant they could only do 57%. it was still 100% of the entire inner roof, but didn't match the footprint of the house, so no go.
it took me 8 days solid to clean all the old insulation, rubble from between the roof spars and reline with about £300 of new, 300mm thick insulation, including jacking the entire boarded/floor loft up too.
my labour was free- insulation cheap enough really.
british gas certainly wouldn't have cleared all my old debris up first though.
arguably thats the hard bit- kicking open and laying insulation isn't hard.
however if you can get it for free, go for it.
they surveyed my house (recently bought, built 1926 and basically I had zero insulation in the two attics we have)
thought I was onto a winner- but the roof design meant they could only do 57%. it was still 100% of the entire inner roof, but didn't match the footprint of the house, so no go.
it took me 8 days solid to clean all the old insulation, rubble from between the roof spars and reline with about £300 of new, 300mm thick insulation, including jacking the entire boarded/floor loft up too.
my labour was free- insulation cheap enough really.
british gas certainly wouldn't have cleared all my old debris up first though.
arguably thats the hard bit- kicking open and laying insulation isn't hard.
however if you can get it for free, go for it.
We had them look at doing our walls. Survey was fine and they thought it viable even though it would have required quite a bit of scaffolding due to our extension. Decided not to go ahead for a number of reasons:- the hassle of having to have scaffolding put up for the job (which may have needed legs on neighbours properties), that they thought they may need to drill holes internally to completely fill what is essentially an external wall but part of which is now internal to our extension, and finally odd stories you read that it can cause damp issues.
Whilst I'm sure it would save us a few ££ on the heating our house isn't that cold and it just didn't seem worth the hassle. No need for the loft as were doing away with that in a couple of months when it becomes a bedroom instead (along with all the necessary insulation required by building control).
Whilst I'm sure it would save us a few ££ on the heating our house isn't that cold and it just didn't seem worth the hassle. No need for the loft as were doing away with that in a couple of months when it becomes a bedroom instead (along with all the necessary insulation required by building control).
Thanks guys you have all been helpful. My roof headspace is limited so I take the point on restricted access.
They also want to have the roof space completely cleared and that includes removal existing boarding, and when I come to put the boarding back that will be a problem too I suspect.
I understand that there can also be a problem with damp patches.
I think I will pass, I will get some interminable grief from the missus if anything goes wrong, like a foot through the bedroom ceiling
They also want to have the roof space completely cleared and that includes removal existing boarding, and when I come to put the boarding back that will be a problem too I suspect.
I understand that there can also be a problem with damp patches.
I think I will pass, I will get some interminable grief from the missus if anything goes wrong, like a foot through the bedroom ceiling
We had both cavity and loft done by British Gas. No problems exactly as advertised (free). No scaffold, all done with ladders, insulation pumped from the van for the walls and then laid rolls for the loft.
With regards to boarding in loft, don't worry about it too much, if it's it just a small patch for access/storage as I have it'll be fine. They just chucked the extra on the side for me to fill in the gap later iif I decide to take my boards down
With regards to boarding in loft, don't worry about it too much, if it's it just a small patch for access/storage as I have it'll be fine. They just chucked the extra on the side for me to fill in the gap later iif I decide to take my boards down
Ive had thie british gas free insulation thingy done in my loft in the last few months.
My girlfriend rang up and arranged a survey with them for a good 6 months later due to demand, luckily we had a cancellation 3 weeks later, the guy said we have too much insulation to qualify (we had an inch if that). BUT he told us if we remove it all and get another survey then we can get it done..... No i am not joking here....
So anyway one evening in the loft removing the old crap and all boards we were approved.
Roll on another 3 weeks and 2 men turrned up, installed a good 200mm high density insulation, fitted notices, seals on the hatch and done a very thorough job.
No it didnt cost us a penny, it took around 3 months all in. Really pleased with it, yes id reccomend everyone of you do it.
But you must have zilch insulation up there and no crap or loft boards
My girlfriend rang up and arranged a survey with them for a good 6 months later due to demand, luckily we had a cancellation 3 weeks later, the guy said we have too much insulation to qualify (we had an inch if that). BUT he told us if we remove it all and get another survey then we can get it done..... No i am not joking here....
So anyway one evening in the loft removing the old crap and all boards we were approved.
Roll on another 3 weeks and 2 men turrned up, installed a good 200mm high density insulation, fitted notices, seals on the hatch and done a very thorough job.
No it didnt cost us a penny, it took around 3 months all in. Really pleased with it, yes id reccomend everyone of you do it.
But you must have zilch insulation up there and no crap or loft boards
Royce44 said:
My girlfriend rang up and arranged a survey with them for a good 6 months later due to demand, luckily we had a cancellation 3 weeks later, the guy said we have too much insulation to qualify (we had an inch if that). BUT he told us if we remove it all and get another survey then we can get it done..... No i am not joking here....
My experience also, but I couldnt be arsed to remove some very degraded and dusty 1960s insulation so just bought some new insulation from Wickes when it was on offer. Okay, probably not as much of a good job, and it cost me more than it would have done, but no way in hell was I going to drag all that old nasty s
t through the house to save £120. Oh, and BG would have been another 3 months before they could look at doing it - which in December wasnt ideal. Took me a weekend, so offset some of the cost against a lower gas bill.
I too thought this was too good to be true - and it was. Bloke came out, looked in the roof and because I had already insulated some of it, he said they could't do the rest. A complete waste of both our times and taxpayer's money.
By all means get gas or electricity from BG but don't fall for the bolt-on extras. Loft insulation is cheap and easy to lay, just do it yourself.
By all means get gas or electricity from BG but don't fall for the bolt-on extras. Loft insulation is cheap and easy to lay, just do it yourself.
About a year ago we bought a detached bungalow, plain rectangular shape about 15 metres x 8 metres in plan view, 3 bedrooms, built round about 1960.
It appears that 100 mm of loft insulation was fitted about 15 years ago, and at first glance we thought it all looked quite good. However, when we get to investigate further, I find that part of the loft is boarded out with T & G on top of the 100 mm deep floor joists, but in some areas spacer battens (again 100 mm deep) have been fitted on top of the T & G, with chipboard on top of the spacers, so we have a rather odd sandwich arrangement.
What concerns me is that the very untidy electrical wiring is running through this sandwich arrangement and mixed up with the fibreglass insulation, and the whole thing turns out to be a mess. I'm therefore proposing to remove the whole lot, clear the decks down to joists and ceiling level, and in effect start again.
What I'd like to do is arrange the wiring so that instead of running at loft floor level, it is routed along the purlins and rafters, and drops down through vertical conduits to the points at ceiling level where connections are to be made. This will keep the loft floor almost entirely free of wiring, except right down at eaves level, so it will not be buried under the insulation. At the same time there's some plumbing to be modified, but that's a minor matter in the overall scheme of things.
With regard to the fitting of new insulation, given that I find fibreglass unpleasant to deal with, what alternatives are there? Rolls of rockwool (does that differ from fibreglass?) and loose fill material?
One final thing: how do you accommodate insulation that is much deeper than the 100 mm floor joists, and board out those areas?
Thanks for bearing with me. Any thoughts, guys?
It appears that 100 mm of loft insulation was fitted about 15 years ago, and at first glance we thought it all looked quite good. However, when we get to investigate further, I find that part of the loft is boarded out with T & G on top of the 100 mm deep floor joists, but in some areas spacer battens (again 100 mm deep) have been fitted on top of the T & G, with chipboard on top of the spacers, so we have a rather odd sandwich arrangement.
What concerns me is that the very untidy electrical wiring is running through this sandwich arrangement and mixed up with the fibreglass insulation, and the whole thing turns out to be a mess. I'm therefore proposing to remove the whole lot, clear the decks down to joists and ceiling level, and in effect start again.
What I'd like to do is arrange the wiring so that instead of running at loft floor level, it is routed along the purlins and rafters, and drops down through vertical conduits to the points at ceiling level where connections are to be made. This will keep the loft floor almost entirely free of wiring, except right down at eaves level, so it will not be buried under the insulation. At the same time there's some plumbing to be modified, but that's a minor matter in the overall scheme of things.
With regard to the fitting of new insulation, given that I find fibreglass unpleasant to deal with, what alternatives are there? Rolls of rockwool (does that differ from fibreglass?) and loose fill material?
One final thing: how do you accommodate insulation that is much deeper than the 100 mm floor joists, and board out those areas?
Thanks for bearing with me. Any thoughts, guys?
Had both cavity wall and loft insulation done by Mark Group, originally applied through British Gas but we were handed off as apparently BG were stopping doing it in our area or something along those lines.
As others, it was subject to survey, but had we paid for this ourselves it would have cost thousands. I was talking to the installer doing my loft insulation and he said it was based on arbitrary criteria whether it was free of charge or not - as a result he said there were cases of people with mansions and swimming pools getting it for free, but OAPs in draughty old bungalows who had to wear coats inside not being eligible.
Had to raise all the boarding in the loft after the installation as previous boarding level was for 150mm insulation only. Used around 100 odd Loft Legs, and highly rate them. http://www.loftleg.com
Available from Wickes, but cheaper online in bulk through eBay.
As others, it was subject to survey, but had we paid for this ourselves it would have cost thousands. I was talking to the installer doing my loft insulation and he said it was based on arbitrary criteria whether it was free of charge or not - as a result he said there were cases of people with mansions and swimming pools getting it for free, but OAPs in draughty old bungalows who had to wear coats inside not being eligible.
Had to raise all the boarding in the loft after the installation as previous boarding level was for 150mm insulation only. Used around 100 odd Loft Legs, and highly rate them. http://www.loftleg.com
Available from Wickes, but cheaper online in bulk through eBay.
Hooli said:
We tried with various companies. However because you can't stand upright in our loft it's a restricted space & they wouldn't do it. Ended up buying insulation ourselves, as they won't just supply it either.
I have restricted head height in the loft and British Gas still carried out the survey and approved the free installation, the installation company carried out the works too. Strange!mrsshpub said:
p1esk said:
One final thing: how do you accommodate insulation that is much deeper than the 100 mm floor joists, and board out those areas?
You can get brackets that fit on the joists to raise the loft floor level & accommodate much deeper insulation.Thank you.
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