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- Has YOUR home been damaged by an eco-friendly scheme? Email freya.barnes@dailymail.co.uk
A father of one has revealed how a Net Zero scheme 'ripped his life apart' and cost him £250k after shoddy building works left his family home without a roof.
Duncan Hayes eagerly accepted the free upgrades on his cottage in Gloucestershire after being promised they would bring down his energy bills as part of government's eco-friendly scheme.
The 45-year-old had 'the full works' on the ECO4 grant - insulation installed on solid walls, cavity walls and in his loft as well as solar air source heat pumps fitted - costing the taxpayer £35,000.
However, two years later his quaint period property has been left a chaotic building site with debris, waste and scaffolding spread everywhere.
Duncan has been without heating for over two years after the solar panels fitted onto his 'wonky' roof led to it caving in and slap-dash insulation gave way to damp and mould inside.
The homeowner believes he was 'missold' works which were 'inappropriate' for his home by installers, who carried out 'botched' in-person surveys to 'make a heap of cash'.
He told the Daily Mail: 'Their profit margin is over 50 per cent, which you don't get in the private sector, so they're making killer margins under the guise of a free system which is not free at all.
Duncan added: 'I haven't been able to work, my house has been completely destroyed. I've lost everything.'
The firm denied responsibility and refused to pay to fix the roof, directing him to ask the government officials running the ECO4 scheme instead.
But after being 'passed around 20 different organisations' whilst rain poured into his already 'uninhabitable' house, the cash-strapped father was forced to repair the roof himself with zero construction experience.
Duncan has lost a whopping total of around £250,000 when adding up the cost of the damage, loss of earnings from being unable to work, and loss of amenity on the property.
And he is not alone, as a spending watchdog this week found two energy cutting government schemes - including ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme - were botched on a vast scale, leaving tens of thousands of homes in need of remedial work.
In 2022, the government directed energy companies to spend billions of pounds, raised via levies on energy bills, on insulating homes across the UK, targeting people receiving benefits and those in very poorly insulated homes.
According to the National Audit Office (NAO), 98 per cent of homes that had external wall insulation installed under the schemes have issues that will lead to damp and mould if left unaddressed.
And 29 per cent of the homes that were given internal insulation also need fixing, it said.
Energy consumer minister Martin McCluskey said the government is taking action and the homes will be fixed 'at no cost to the consumer' - but this only covers faulty insulation under the scheme, not solar air source heat pumps or any other works done that have resulted in damage to properties.
The NAO report focused on work carried out between 2022 and the start of 2025 on the two schemes.
It found there were 'clear failures' in the design of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) scheme, which resulted in 'poor-quality installations as well as suspected fraud'.
The NAO also directed criticism at TrustMark, a consumer protection scheme set up in 2021 to monitor the quality of insulation programmes. It said there had been 'weak' oversight and insufficient auditing of the schemes and that this had allowed installers to 'game' the system.
Last year the whole-industry regulator, Ofgem, estimated that businesses had falsified claims for ECO installations in up to 16,500 homes, potentially claiming between £56million and £165million from energy suppliers.
Duncan said the free eco-friendly upgrades which promised him cheaper energy bills have actually had the opposite effect and instead driven him 'and others' who have had similar issues into 'fuel poverty'.
The damage, especially in his daughter's bedroom, has also meant she has been unable to stay at his house, which was a major factor in his decision to move there in the first place.
'It's disgusting. It's enraged me. Those are years we will never get back and she's gone off to university now,' he said.
Another reason Duncan moved to Gloucestershire was to 'recover' and get his life back on track after being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult saw his mental health decline, but his house worries ruined that for him.
Getting any form of justice for his plight has also been another headache for Duncan.
He contacted the Furniture and Home Improvement Ombudsman for help and looked into taking it to the small claims courts, but they both cap claims at £10,000.
When he took it to the police, telling them he had 'irrefutable proof of fraud and misselling' in the sector, he was given a host of reasons as to why they couldn't help.
He claims the excuses given were it is a 'civil matter', it's 'too complex', they don't have the resources to take on his case, and they are waiting for more victims to come forward.
Taking things into his own hands yet again, Duncan has now set up a Facebook group for other victims, who post daily about similar experiences and ask advice on pushy installers, and the organisation Nature Society to raise awareness through campaigns.
Many of the people in the group are 'vulnerable', with some even being forced to deal with these issues as they battle cancer and other serious illnesses.
He said: 'I started this about nine weeks ago because there is no advocacy or support for homeowners whatsoever in the ECO4 landscape.
'There is literally no organisation whose remit it is to protect the needs and experiences of homeowners.
'In fact, every single body out there, their remit is to protect installers, not home owners. So, you can imagine what goes on, it's absolutely insane.
'You quite literally get far more protection when you're buying a fridge-freezer than you do when you're doing something to your home which is so disruptive. They're ripping your life apart, your place of safety.'
Construction expert and owner of London-based building company Tarbook , Sherman Webb, who has 43 years experience in the industry, explained the shortfalls in the ECO4 scheme that have led to thousands needing repairs.
He said: 'The whole system was sales-driven, not survey-driven. Homeowners were offered fully funded works through a government-backed scheme, of course most said yes, why wouldn't they? But the people selling these measures weren't builders or surveyors - they were salesmen.
'When you make major changes to a building envelope, there are key things that must be assessed first: structural soundness, moisture issues, ventilation, damp proof courses, detailing around openings, service penetrations, thermal bridges, and load capacity. These checks are essential, but the sales model bypassed all of that.
'Their goal was to sign up as many properties as possible because they were paid per job, not for doing a proper job. System guarantees were technically required to release funding, but clearly no one was properly checking.
'They'd do a quick survey and say a house could have external insulation, solar panels, or whatever else triggered grant money, even when a competent surveyor would have flagged it as unsuitable.
'A good example is the solar panels on Duncan's visibly uneven or structurally questionable roof; proper professionals wouldn't have touched it. These firms went ahead anyway because it secured the payment.
'The whole thing was wrapped up in the language of Net Zero and helping vulnerable households, which made it look trustworthy. In reality, that gave opportunistic firms cover to exploit both the funding system and homeowners.
'It's a classic sales model dressed up as environmental good. You will always get bad workmanship when everyone involved stands to gain! Independent quality checking is lacking throughout the industry.'
After the watchdog's finding were released, head of the NAO Gareth Davies said it is now the responsibility of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to ensure the businesses at fault repaired 'all affected homes as quickly as possible'.
'It must also reform the system so that this cannot happen again,' he said.