Poida,could you get the installers to come back and do it properly.Or have they seized trading?

I saw that program too. 4 corners on the ABC. Just about made me cry.
I couldn't believe that anyone would go up into a roof space with highly conductive aluminium foil, and then start spreading it around and firing off metal staples through the stuff, without turning off the mains power at the switchboard.
It made me very angry, mostly with the people who set up businesses to make a fast buck at the taxpayers expense without any apparent concern regarding the safety of the people they employed to do the job, and without any regard for the safety of the finished job for the householder.
It looked like a classic case of get in, do a rough enough job, get out, and give me the money.
I think they are mostly to blame for the deaths and the rough and unsafe workmanship.

The government is partly to blame for being so stupid as to not expect that if they put a bucket of money up for grabs, then it would attract a whole lot of 'fly by night' operators just in it for some easy money.
They made the same mistake with their schools building program.
It shows how disconnected they are from the real world.

They were also at fault for being so slow to take action when they were advised of the obvious faults in the program.

As general advice, anyone going up into the roofspace should turn off the main power switch at the switchboard.
This applies particularly to old houses because;
1/. even if it had good wiring to begin with, rats love to chew on plasic insulation and will chew it right down to the copper wires, leaving live wires exposed.
2/. If the house is pre 1955, it would have the old rubber insulation which by now is competely rotten and falling off the wires. There will be many live wires exposed.!

I think the only reason you would need to pull the fuse at the power pole is if you were working at the point where the overhead wires entererd the house and then went off to the switchboard. I would be surprised if that was necessary.

i didnt watch that show last night.

i do blame the government for this insulation balls up.

when a government interfere with the free markets of an industry it creates a fake economy of that industry. it creates an unsustainable high in productivity that eventually ends in a hangover for that affected industry. of course this is made worse by the fact the government has pulled the plug because of the balls up with many insulation companies left with lots of stock and no one currently interested to install into their home ,as most whom where thinking of doing so only was persuaded by a government handout.

there is no risk/ reward business management by the process that the government dished out apart from the scheme ending abruptly (as so happened) cowboys came into the industry as will always happen when little business risk is associated to a government handout.

the word risk i do not mean, the chance of a house fire , or chance of electrocution, business risk as in risk of bankruptcy through poor price competition, quality control and everything else a free market requires for the reward / profit and success.

the government should of done due diligence prior to this scheme in the safety risks as well as the business model risk... both which have caused allot of pain to many people.

the govt were trying to give a boost to the free market that had a cardiac arrest.

the banks giving out too many loans, cutting their fee out, then bumping the interest rate and overheating the free market (housing, commercial, industrial ewtc etc) was much worse than a govt stimulus to jump start the economy again

the govt idea was ok, but the execution was a total f**k up, and the minister deserved getting the sack imho. the amount of the stimulus in hindsight was probably excessive. Next year we will maybe seeing another downturn after the money dries up again?

the bloke next door got his done and all the plaster in kitchen & dinning rooms collapsed couldn't take the extra weight like my house it already had rock-wool insulation the plaster was not fixed properly in the first place so the insurance assessor who made them evacuate the house in case the rest of it feel down put it down to water damage was easier to do just to get claim through faster .

Haircut said...


at the other end of the spectrum, the mechanics who decided to raise the price of a normally $1800 LPG conversion to nearly $4000 when the government offered to fund the conversions

doesn't anyone monitor anything anymore? did they ever?

Yeah, I noticed this too. I wonder if its gone down now. I think the rebate has now been reduced hasn't it? At one stage suppliers were saying that they were waiting on tanks as the manufacturers had not anticipated the level of demand they were getting.

I also got a quote for a solar hot water system, and then one after the rebates were available. They got more expensive too. Must have been a solar shortage or something :)

I went to an effort to get water corp training for my retic business, but found that the paperwork and govt audits made it too expensive. I couldnt do a quote that would be competative with the untrained operators.
then the govt ended the scheme. I didnt do a single job that was a rebate job.
virtually all the new work I get called out to repair are missing vital bits. Ive even had one that had got earthed to the house electrics.
In the end the customers will go cheapest , and have no idea what thier getting