CIGA Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency Reviews 143

Guarantee worthless. CWI Company still trading and in denial about the serious damage they have done to my property plus the serious health issues where is is the redress. Stonewalled all the way. After 2 years and all the evidence I have fighting this and there excuses offered £250. Where's the justice when your home and life are destroyed??

Cavity wall insulation was apparently installed in my house by the previous owners approx 20 years ago but I was unaware of this until I called an EON engineer for a survey to have insulation installed as the house does not retain heat in winter and gets very cold as soon as the central heating is switched off.
I was told that the walls had already been insulated and eventually found the original CIGA 25 year guarantee so I contacted them as clearly the insulation did not work.
I was "brushed off" by both customer services and the technical team who, amongst other things as well as being patronising, told me that:
a. CIGA is unable to guarantee the performance of cavity wall insulation once installed.
b. Cavity wall insulation is a ‘fit and forget’ product and will not decay or degrade unless there is disturbance.
c. Air temperature will inevitably begin to reduce as soon as the heating source stops.
d. CIGA is obliged to investigate concerns, however, you are simply reporting poor performance which is not within CIGA’s control to monitor.
e. The comments were not meant to be patronising but simply informative and advisory.
f. CIGA is unable to authorise an inspection without reasonable justification.
I was also told that Cavity wall insulation was installed in 1998 and CIGA has no record of correspondence reporting similar concerns in the interim 20 years. Well, that's because the previous owners rented the house and I was not aware there was insulation until now!! Surely if they issue a 25 year guarantee I should be able to contact them with a problem up until the day before it expires.
They never specified what this guarantee actually covers and they never suggested that I contact the firm who installed it but I agree with the other reviewers that the CIGA guarantee is not worth the paper it is written on and both customer service and technical team staff are unhelpful and patronizing.

Went to CIGA as the cavity wall installers Miller Pattison won’t accept their insulation was causing damp in our house, despite 2 independent experts saying otherwise. They simply said there was no guarantee in place and therefore won’t get involved. I have since learned from research that most of the directors of CIGA are directors of cavity wall insulation companies so they are not interested in helping the customer.

Personally my experience with Ciga has been extremely positive.
I made sure that all communication was via email ensuring a paperwork trail, and Yes, I did have to chase them a couple of times.
A surveyor was sent round, I stayed calm, polite , and at all times i stuck to the true facts of the problem.
It was explained by the Surveyor that CWI itself would never be the sole cause of cavity gap bridging, ( i am still sceptical of this but arguing with him would never of helped my cause), He continued, any water ingress or mould is likely to be caused by debris or cold spots in the CWI (which may or may not be caused by existing or new debris).
The surveyor was happy for me to oversee him searching the wall cavity using a camera, subsequently he found debris mixed in with the CWI thus creating the bridging that led to the water ingress.
As we had not carried out any recent building work on the wall in question he agreed that the debris must of been pre existing prior to the CWI installation.
The surveyor made a report and following this Ciga agreed to remove the debris and repair any internal damage.
I may have been lucky with my experience but as I would advise when making any complaint... be polite, firm, stick to the facts and have a trail of all communication.
Thank you Ciga , in my experience you have lived up to your Guarantee.

CIGA Guarantee Not Worth the Paper it is Written on

I contacted CIGA when we had issues in our home.

They sent the boss of the company that carried out the insulation work. That company had gone bust and he had opened up another one doing the same thing!

He drilled a hole in my wall (which he subsequently left there) and proceeded to tell me that the damp could not be due to the cavity wall in that part of the house because there was NO insulation in that part of the house!! Even though I had paid for this work to be done. It was not a government freebie.

They had tried to fill the garage that had been converted into a room and was a single skin that had been dry lined with kingspan and did not have a cavity ( the incompetent idiots). Bees had made their home in a wall in another part of the property where they had left the fill holes open and they had siliconed the air bricks instead of sleeving them.

The report came back that there were no issues even though there is clearly damp and other issues.

I was very unhappy and pretty disgusted at the report. Not least the fact that I had paid for something that, by his own, glib admission, had not been done. I have since found that the reason for the mould is that the walls that have not been done cause cold spots which in turn cause condensation and mould!

Why they did not send an independent surveyor to inspect the work I have no idea.

I wrote to CIGA about the report and they just ignored my comment.

CIGA are a total waste of time and their guarantee is totally worthless.

Very bad experience with this company. I was led to believe via installer that:
1. Cavity Wall Insulation was ‘backed’ by a ‘Guarantee’ and
2. Was ‘Government Backed’

With our home being our only investment we truly believed that the guarantee ‘must’ be robust, this was not the case at all. We had our insulation installed by British Gas (yes, the huge~monster company), they installed irresponsibly, the installation failed and yet we had a living nightmare to get the stuff removed out of our home.. Our story is long and stretched over 3 years.. The RISKS are WAY too high and the probability of installation failure simply just not worth the ‘benefit’ (if indeed there are any benefits)..

So going back to the company, they have proven unhelpful for us.

Shambles of a guarantee agency. They will do everything to avoid rectifying poor workmanship. AVOID CAVITY WALL INSULATION! Otherwise if you have any problems, the original company will probably be bankrupt (or set up under a different name) and CIGA will slope their shoulder that much, their ear will be touching the ground.

My cavity wall guarantee isnt worth the paper it is written on. My property is damaged with remedial costs of 10k and these so called people couldnt care less.
No replies to contact, customer service is non existent, offered me £500 to go away.

If I could give it a zero I would..the so called guarantee isn't worth the paper it's written on.they will find any excuse to get out of paying when the cavity wall insulation goes wrong and the cavity insulation company goes out of business ciga won't care.takes a while to answer emails and phone calls...BEWARE

If you are undertaking Cavity Wall Insulation on your home with the mindset that a 'guarantee' will bring confidence in 'putting things right if things go wrong'- think again.

It is an unthinkable battle to get things 'put right' if they go wrong (if they get put right at all).

The RISK far outweighs benefit. Beware.

Try getting through to then ABSOLUTE JOKE 35 minutes on hold

CIGA - the cavity insulation guarantee agency - are supposed to insure all work carried out by registered insulation companies. I have spent the last 4 months trying to get an issue resolved since the cavity wall insulation failed and drenched the material in the cavity which pushed water through into our internal wall, in turn damaging plaster, paper, paint, carpets and causing damp throughout the downstairs of my house. I have made endless phone calls only to get different answers each time.

They sent an inspector out who confirmed that the materials were soaking and the only way to resolve this would be to drain the cavity and we then had a letter from CIGA saying they would not help us. After finding out we lived in a high exposure zone - the highest classed in the U.K and an area that should NEVER have the cavity insulates, I challenged their decision by emailing the manager of the technical team on 5th May - 18 days ago - after being told I would receive a response shortly! I rang at the end of the week and was told I would have a final response by 20th May. I rang this morning after having heard nothing only to be told that this was bad information as the manager was on annual leave all last week and would be looking at it today!!!!

I will be contacting a solicitor if I get no response this week. They have been made aware that I have a 4 month old baby living in damp conditions and it is their responsibility to resolve the matter which was caused by an incompetent company - who have since gone out of business - installing insulation in an area that should never have it!! My baby is my priority and I can't get anything fixed until the cavity is drained!!

CIGA should be an independent entity from the cavity wall insulation industry but apparently their directors are also directors of insulation companies - is this really allowed?!