Tens of thousands of Brits have homes ‘butchered’ by cowboy traders during Government net zero drive

ROGUE traders are cashing in on Britain’s net zero drive, but allegedly leaving tens of thousands of vulnerable families with “butchered” homes, soaring energy bills and seriously out of pocket. The Government’s ECO4 scheme was designed to provide warmer homes and reduce energy bills by funding green upgrades such as insulation, solar panels and heat pumps for low-income households. An anonymous victim claims their entire ceiling and carpets needed to be replaced after a major leak was caused after an ECO4 solar installation cracked nine roof tiles Credit: Supplied Duncan Hayes says that condensation was present across the house whenever it reached 10°C Credit: Duncan Hayes But The Sun has spoken to several families who claim the £4billion scheme has done the exact opposite, with cowboy tradesmen leaving them to battle cold, damp properties, with poorly installed retrofits and now struggling with sky-high energy bills. According to official Government figures, 300,000 homes have undergone some form of ECO4 retrofit since the £4billion scheme began in 2022. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! MPs estimate that up to 35,000 homes have been affected by faulty insulation alone as part of two Government energy schemes. But industry experts predict the total number of homes which have had some form of a botched work installed under ECO4 to be closer to 100,000. Carolyn Warne, 54, from rural Aberdeenshire claimed she qualified for the scheme because she receives Universal Credit. The support worker said her typical energy bills were around £70-a-month, but after having solar panels, insulation and air source heat pump installed, she claims they could now reach as much as £400. She said: “I’ve had all this work done, and my house isn’t any more energy efficient and I’ll be paying out more for my bills!” Carolyn has since switched off the new heating system but fears what will happen when temperatures plunge in the winter. Most read in The Sun Many ECO4 victims cannot suitably heat their homes or can no longer afford to do so Credit: Duncan Hayes Carolyn Warne says she has switched off her heating system after her energy bills tripled Credit: Carolyn Warne Similarly, October Simmons, a charity worker in Efailwen, Carmarthenshire claimed she had been left in debt with her energy provider following the ECO4 work to her home. The 52-year-old said her electricity bill rocketed from £120 to £360 a month after the retrofit was complete, which also included insulation, solar panels and an air source heat pump. She added that the rendering work to the property was so “appalling” it looked like someone had “used a machine gun” on her walls. Other victims claim the work has left their homes dangerously damaged or even uninhabitable, while others are still waiting for botched installations to be put right years later. Duncan Hayes, 46, claims his Gloucestershire property remains unlivable after serious defects to his roof were missed during a visual inspection of his property in February 2023, before solar panels were installed under ECO4. Within months, the father-of-one began hearing loud banging and creaking as his roof “audibly failed” under the weight of the solar panels. He later discovered his home had bowed outwards, while the connections between the rafters and joists had completely detached. Ultimately, the entire roof had to be replaced during what proved to be an exceptionally wet winter. After struggling to find anyone willing to take on the work, the former advertising executive says he was forced to hire scaffolding and rebuild it himself despite having no construction experience. Duncan also claims that water use to trickle down the walls and regularly flood the fuse box Credit: Duncan Hayes Duncan Hayes alleges his installers left a substantial hole in the wall which led to a mouse infestation Credit: Duncan Hayes He claims the ordeal has cost him around £150,000 in raw building materials alone, plus another £50,000 repairing the damage caused to the ceilings, walls and carpets. Duncan added: “It would be easier to knock the house down.” Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee reported that the worst case of defective ECO4 installations and resultant damage they were aware of cost over £250,000 to fix. Meanwhile, Ken from Birmingham, who asked not to give his full name, says he received external wall insulation under ECO4 in May 2024, but claimed the installation was botched and remains unfinished. He said subsequent inspections identified mould, water ingress and inadequate ventilation, and he was warned the incorrectly fitted insulation boards were a “fire hazard” which needed to be removed. In another case, Nicky in Lancashire says she was left to deal with a leak in her property after solar panel installers drilled directly through the tiles of her roof. The mum-of-one told The Sun: “Rather than lifting the tiles and doing what they needed to do, they just drilled straight through the tiles. And not just once, there are three holes! I’ve now got a leak coming through my roof. I’m dreading winter. The healthcare worker claimed a solar panel specialist who inspected her property said “they’ve butchered your roof” and quoted her £4,000 to repair it. Nicky’s roof tiles where workers drilled straight through the tiles leading to a leak Credit: Supplied October Simmons’ wall which she claims looks like someone has used a “machine gun” Credit: October Simmons She added that the original company was not willing to take responsibility so she would “have to go up there with gaffer tape and start covering up the gaps.” The Sun has spoken to four families who claim to have had their homes ruined after dodgy solar panel installers allegedly broke or drilled through roof tiles causing a leak inside their properties. Many of the victims who had work completed on their houses have been left to pick up expensive bills for independent reports proving the damage was caused by the eco-upgrades or by paying out to get their homes fixed. Michael Cronin, 64, from Brynafan, Wales, said: “We’ve been on this merry-go-round for nearly four years. It’s been an absolute nightmare.” Another ECO4 victim shared the damage to her property alongside water ingress in the walls Credit: Hannah Luckett An anonymous ECO4 victims alleges that a broken roof tile from the solar panel installation led to water coming through their ceiling Credit: Supplied The retired heating engineer had his oil boiler replaced with a heat pump under ECO4 in 2023, along with solar panels, external insulation and rendering. But he claimed the retrofit work left his rural cottage with damp walls, loose roof tiles and a faulty heat pump that struggles to heat his lounge above 19°C in winter. Michael refused to sign off the work and claimed the installer then bullied and threatened him and his wife. He says he has since spent around £1,500 dealing with the aftermath of the eco work, but said mental stress has cost much more. He claims to have been quoted £9,000 to replace the heat pump. But even when homeowners try to get the problems put right, some say they have faced a new battle over who is responsible for remediation. Some described being bounced between installers, energy suppliers, accreditation bodies and complaints organisations, with each entity pointing to another, while the victims’ homes remain damaged or unfinished. Richard Sadler, from Tetchill, Shropshire, claimed that £37,000 of ECO4 work was complete on his property in January 2025, but instead of saving him £1,700-a-year, his bills have trebled and the botched work will cost £40,000 to put right. He claims to only be able to live in the upstairs of his property because he cannot get the downstairs higher than 16°C in winter, something which he adds is very difficult with a seven-year-old child. Duncan also alleges that rising damp destroyed the PIR insulation Credit: Duncan Hayes More defective rendering which Hayes claims was not detected by surveyors before work began Credit: Duncan Hayes Richard says he has escalated his complaint “through all channels” and it’s now with “the regulators of the regulators”. But he has still not received a satisfactory response to his remediation claims. The 49-year-old school bus driver told The Sun: “You like to believe there is someone out there who is willing to resolve these issues. But it’s completely shattered my faith in people.” Richard has since been referred for counselling for PTSD which he claims to have developed dealing with the regulatory process over the 20 months. TrustMark told The Sun: “Mr Sadler has been offered an independent survey of his property. If any remediation work is needed, an independent installer will carry it out and will be overseen by MCS and TrustMark. After Duncan’s roof needed to be replaced water poured into his house destroying ‘every ceiling, wall and floor’ Credit: Duncan Hayes Sloppy work complete by retrofit installers which has began to develop mould Credit: Supplied “At this point, Mr Sadler has not allowed any of the work to start and he continues to contact multiple organisations raising concerns about the process, as well as threatened legal action.” Meanwhile, Gaynor Williams, 65, from Pwllheli, North West Wales, said she was now facing her fourth winter with poor heating and noisy pipes after undergoing an ECO4 retrofit. She explained that her original installers lost their accreditation in December 2025 before going into administration the following month. Her complaint was taken over by their parent company, which subsequently also lost its accreditation for installing heat pumps just months later. During her three-year battle to resolve the problems, Gaynor said she had dealt with a string of bodies overseeing the scheme and industry, such as TradeMark and Ofgem, but claimed none of them would take responsibility for putting things right. She told The Sun: “The complaints process is an absolute nightmare even if you are tech savvy.” She added: “There will be thousands of elderly, vulnerable consumers who are suffering, with no way of complaining. TrustMark said: “Any remediation work will be carried out by an independent, accredited installer at no cost to Ms Williams… At this point, Ms Williams has not agreed to the inspection taking place, or the remediation plan.” Richard Grant claims to have suffered water damage to his bathroom ceiling from vents which were installed during his eco-retrofit Credit: Richard Grant Ken from Birmingham’s external wall insulation which remains unfinished after years Credit: Supplied West Midlands-based Ken said: “All of that was bad enough, but to add insult to injury, no-one could tell me who was responsible and who was going to put things right.” He said he had complained to TrustMark about his botched and incomplete installation on at least three occasions before a completion certificate was issued for the work in November 2024. Ken went on to claim that the certificate enabled the contractor to receive payment despite the problems he had already reported. But victims and industry sources have also raised concerns about ‘phoenix companies’, where the installers go bust but the same people behind the failed firms simply reappear under new company names. Esther Stevenson, 54, claims substandard insulation was fitted to the flat roof of her Scottish home which caused extensive damp and water ingress. But the secondary school teacher, located in Dumfries and Galloway, said the company involved had since gone into liquidation, while another company had started trading from the same premises, using the same phone number and involving the same staff and directors. The collapse or liquidation of a company responsible for the retrofit can leave victims chasing guarantees and regulators, which have no realistic prospect of getting the newly named operators to fix or pay for damage they allegedly caused. In an attempt to address these sorts of ‘complex cases’, victim-turned-campaigner Susan Challenger presented 12 households’ ECO4 plights to the Government in June 2026. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero logged them and confirmed they would engage with the relevant bodies to identify a resolution. But The Sun has also seen a letter from the Department addressed to one of the 12 victims from July which came to the conclusion: “The routes that would ordinarily fund remediation are not currently available in your case.” The Department ends the letter by insisting: “This is not the end of the matter.” The Sun understands that none of the 12 complex cases have had any meaningful updates since their meeting with a Government minister, but the Department maintains it is still “exploring” roads to remediation. More poor workmanship carried out under the scheme leaving a victim with a large hole in her floor Credit: Hannah Luckett Bathroom mould developed after October underwent an ECO4 retrofit Credit: October Simmons In September 2025, ministers revealed over 30,000 homes had botched insulation fitted to their homes under two recent Government schemes, with around 10% of households remediated. At the time, Energy Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh told Parliament it amounted to a “systemic failure”. But the true scale of the problem, accounting for all defective installations under the ECO4 scheme, is not known. More than 300,000 homes have had heat pumps, solar panels, insulation and other work carried out under ECO4 since the £4billion scheme launched in 2022. But no authority has yet conducted a survey for the number of defective heat pumps installed or the number of botched solar panels fitted under the scheme. One industry expert estimates that around half the total number of retrofit installations fitted under the scheme could be defective. They said: “No-one actually knows the true number because we have only checked a small percentage. I’d be confident it would be over 100,000 properties if all ECO4 installations were properly checked.” They added: “The scandal is – we really don’t know the true number!” The scheme was funded through levies on household utility bills, with energy suppliers given targets to fund green upgrades and help tackle fuel poverty. But the amount of cash available to installers depended on how much the retrofit work improved a home’s energy efficiency rating. Other industry insiders alleged some firms gamed the system by exaggerating how energy inefficient properties were before work began. One retrofit installer told The Sun the £4billion scheme became a “salesman’s gold mine”, but also handed rogue traders an opportunity to cash in on the rush for green upgrades. In April 2026, the Serious Fraud Office began investigating allegations of fraud by three companies in relation to ECO4 totalling at least £44million. Duncan claims that damp was present on the day his installers commenced insulation work Credit: Duncan Hayes More sloppy work carried out in October Simmons’ home Credit: October Simmons But industry sources suspect the level of organised crime benefiting from the scheme to be far more deep-rooted and “rotten to the core”. Insiders told The Sun the problems go far beyond cowboy companies and inexperienced installers, with greater concerns over the accreditation bodies meant to police the industry. They claim the schemes make money every time their members lodge an assessment on a property, creating little financial incentive to strike off those responsible for poor work. One source said: “It’s much more far-reaching and endemic than it seems on the surface. They wouldn’t be able to get away with it if they were audited and policed properly.” The Serious Fraud Office told The Sun: “This remains a live investigation. We cannot provide any further details besides those shared in our April 2026 press release.” But a certified heat pump installer stressed that the technology itself should not be blamed for the damage done to people’s homes. He insisted: “Heat pumps work very well if designed and installed correctly, but unfortunately there are companies out there who do things incorrectly, especially under the ECO4 grant.” But for the tens of thousands of households who were promised warmer homes and lower energy bills, many are still waiting for their properties to be fixed, while dealing with mounting costs and trying to find anyone willing to take responsibility. Hot water pipes dangerously placed under a washing machine during an ECO4 retrofit Credit: Anonymous, Supplied A window installation fitted under ECO4 which the owner claims leaks and is ‘squint in every direction’ Credit: Supplied Many of the victims who spoke to The Sun asked to remain anonymous for fear that speaking out would affect their complaint with the relevant authorities or future remediation. TrustMark told The Sun: “It is never acceptable when poor quality work is carried out in consumers’ homes. “We have been supporting consumers throughout to find routes to resolving their issues. “Change is needed to the system to make it easier for consumers to find their way through and we are working with government, regulators and the industry to help make this happen.” An Ofgem spokesperson said: “It is unacceptable that people have been left with substandard work carried out under the ECO4 scheme. “While we cannot comment on specific cases, Ofgem will continue to support government and TrustMark’s ‘find and fix’ programme through a contact centre to help those worst affected to access support through that programme.” A DESNZ spokesperson said: “We inherited the failing ECO4 scheme, which we ended after it clearly let families down. “No household should have to pay to put the issues right and TrustMark is working to support those affected to ensure this is the case. “Our Warm Homes Plan will overhaul the system to protect consumers and ensure failings are not repeated.” Comment now