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The Pink Bat Rip-off

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The insulation that was installed in our place was only about 2cm thick and on a roll with Chinese writing all over it. When quizzed the guy said it meets the ASA Standard number something or other.

My mother did better, she unded up with brand name Pink Batts around 6 inches thick.

Not much I can do - just a rental, and hard enough to get anything installed
 
Logique said:
Why on earth would you want loose cellulose in your roof cavity anyway? I've read the brochure. It didn't satisfy my concerns.

Rebate or not, I wouldn't want the stuff in my roof.
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Fibreglass batts (Pink Batts, Bradford or similar brands) are the way to go in my opinion unless there's a specific reason to use something else. It won't burn, won't rot, doesn't wear out and so on. The only downside is it's not pleasant stuff if you have to work in the roof after it's been installed - electricians in particular don't like it for that reason but apart from that it's a good product.

Foil has a worthwhile use in a hot climate for keeping the heat out during the day, but isn't a real alternative to bulk insulation (batts etc) in a cool climate.

Polyester has advantages in any area that's likely to be regularly accessed since the batts are non-irritating to the skin and require no protective gear to install. You really could go to sleep on them if you wanted to. It's more expensive than fibreglass however and you do need to make sure it's a quality product and not something that will burn easily (there are quality products available, just make sure you get them).

Forget the rest unless there's a specific reason to use them in my opinion. Cellulose blows around, makes a nice rat / mouse nest and is flammable. Loose fill rockwool also has the blowing about problem although at least it can't burn and isn't overly attractive to rodents. Foam can work if done well but there's lots of horror stories of it going wrong. And don't even think about straw etc - way too flammable.

And don't forget the R rating of any type of insulation you install. Vic / Tas go for 3.5 or 4 (more if you've got $ to spend). In warmer climates a bit less should be OK. There's an official guide that lists each area somewhere and it's good advice. Don't have a link unfortunately.
 
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...to-stimulus-rort/story-e6frg6nf-1225817873922

Dumped batts point to stimulus rort

THEY are a tell-tale sign that the Rudd government's great pink batt rollout is still being rorted by shonky installers -- bags and batts of perfectly good insulation ripped out of ceiling cavities and dumped in quiet corners of suburbia.

Steve Saikos, mayor of the Melbourne municipality of Kingston, says they started popping up like mushrooms after rain just before Christmas; 38 bags near a disused textile plant, 175 next to the entrance of a tip, 200 on the side of a road.

"Over the past month Kingston council workers have collected over 500 bags of old insulation . . . and council is becoming increasingly concerned that old insulation is being systematically removed from houses to accommodate the new, subsidised insulation.
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A spokesman for Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the government would take "an extremely dim view of anyone who tries to exploit the Home Insulation Program in any way".
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What this means is they will turn a blind eye. The government is not concerned with how the money is wasted as long as it is spent. The above article refers to "tell-tale" signs. In the area where I live, blind Freddy would know that it has been occurring on a massive scale, and this is not unique to the Sunshine Coast. I reported the case where dozens of houses with existing roof insulation have had insulation pumped into the roof cavities.

In fact, in my street on some days the air was thick with insulation dust, and I live in a village where every house was efficiently insulated during construction.

The Rudd government is not taking a "dim view" of this. The are taking a dim view of whistle blowers. I was advised that they had the matter in hand, and that "random checks" would uncover any rorts.

I wouldn't be surprised if most of the money allocated under the stimulus package has stimulated corruption to historic proportions. This will always happen when the checks and balances are practically non-existent.

And it is certainly not in the Governments interests to uncover the massive waste and graft occurring in the bats or school building programs. They know about the millions that have disappeared in the aboriginal housing program. Another case of turning a blind eye.
 
I know of people who will well and truly become millionaires out of this business.

They target large complexes of units where only about 3-$400 of material is used and pay about $150 per unit for the installers.

At $1200 there is plenty of profit left.Each team is doing about 5 jobs per day.With multiple teams equals lots of cash.

The installers have no qualifications and often there is a co-ordinator who is collecting the $150 per unit x 5= $750 per day and paying 2 juniors $70 cash each per day,(who are possibly already collecting benefits from the government).This gives the co-ordinator over $600 per day for minimal organising.

Sometimes there is damage,but the co-ordinator sorts that as not to draw attention.

Substandard work and insulation on previous insulation(esp blow in insulation) is performed.

Its all about volumes.The more houses that can be done in the shortest period of time is the name of the game before the final bell rings,thats all folks-the moneys all gone.

I am sure these government funded millionaires will be eternally grateful.

All the best.
 
Smurf1976 said:
If you have these type of lights then I very strongly recommend checking in the roof space to ensure they are well clear of anything flammable.

These lights run hot and are designed to pass radiant heat through their back and into the roof space. It's a disaster waiting to happen if there is wiring, insulation, timber framing or anything else in close proximity to the lights.

Ideally go into the roof to check but you can get a pretty good idea of what's up there by simply removing the lamp (bulb) in the normal manner and poking your fingers up there (I recommend switching power off at the switchboard before doing this, just in case).

If you decide to remove the entire fitting to check, then be aware that whilst they seem to pull out of the ceiling quite easily, they are held in by a spring and once you get it all the way out it snaps back like a rat trap and this is quite painful if your fingers are in the way. Be careful where you put your fingers... :2twocents
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Place I live in now thank heavens doesn’t have one.

But your timely words of warning are for everybody who has them.

I also heard that there are some LED or energy efficient globes that fit directly into fittings to replace those > Oven Like < halogens.

Did I hear right?
 
You can easily get LED and Fluoro replacements for some types of downlights.

For 240V halogens (NOT 12 Volt) you can easily get fluoros from hardware stores etc. They are not as bright as they claim, due to the small size blocking quite a bit of the light the tube produces (as in maybe half of it). But still useful in some applications.

There are also LED products available, generally for 12V use. Again they're not as bright but they run cool and do have a very long life. Useful under benches etc but not yet good enough to light an entire room with (well, unless you don't want it very bright or use a lot of them).

5 or 10 years time though I think all new lights will be LED's as that's certainly where the industry is headed. Incredibly long life and energy efficient but they're not quite there (yet) in terms of light output and quality. They're getting better all the time though.

As for all the government's throwing around of money, it seems like pure madness to me but I figured if I'm going to end up paying the bill via taxes then I might as well get something for it. I've claimed two separate grants worth a total of $9000 over the past few months. One for PV solar panels (which produce electricity, not hot water) on the roof and the other for a heat pump water heater. Add in the Renewable Energy Certificates, which are funded by consumers rather than government, and there's another $1733. I might as well get something for the taxes I'll be paying for the next few decades to pay for all this...

One thing I'm not happy about though is the creation of a boom and bust cycle. It's already been done a few times now in the solar industry and the same will happen with insulation. All that's happening is that instead of Australian companies (which used to dominate the insulation market) selling product for years to come, we now have demand rushed forward due to the government's grant and that is being filled largely with imported product.

Then when it's all over, the market that local companies would have had for the next decade or more has been destroyed, meanwhile foreign insulation suppliers have got their foot in the door. That could end up basically wrecking the local insulation manufacturing industry.:2twocents
 
I've noticed too that LED's are OK for mood creation, but not quite there for general application.


Smurf1976 said:
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when it's all over, the market that local companies would have had for the next decade or more has been destroyed, meanwhile foreign insulation suppliers have got their foot in the door. That could end up basically wrecking the local insulation manufacturing industry.:2twocents
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We will end up just selling some commodities and the rest will be imported.

Probably big holes we dig to get the stuff to send overseas, can be filled in with imported rubbish for which we can get some money too.

Quite bleak future with our Government run by cash splash masters.
 
I just received a call from a local number, offering to put insulation in my roof for free. She rattled off her little spiel all chirpy and flirty. I told her my house already has good quality insulation. But she kept persisting, saying I may as well replace mine with new insulation, seeing as it's free after all :banghead:. I told her I wasn't interested. I then asked how she got my phone number (a private number) and knew my name. Knowing I wasn't going to budge, she simply said "thank you" and hung up.

My local council have had problems lately with insulation being dumped throughout suburbia (see Calliope's post). I'm not sure if the pushy person calling me (and probably calling many other property owners too) are contributing to the dumping, but I think I might pass on their phone number to the council anyway.
 
Thanks, Stan. I've yesterday had a response from the government, asking for my address etc so they can follow up.

I also sent the info to the Liberal Party. Received a 'thank you very much, we will be taking it up with the Minister" reply, and a promise of a report on the outcome.

Meantime, I've heard from so many other people that the insulation has really made a great difference and they're very happy with it, that I'm considering having it done after all.:rolleyes:
 
Julia said:
Thanks, Stan. I've yesterday had a response from the government, asking for my address etc so they can follow up.

I also sent the info to the Liberal Party. Received a 'thank you very much, we will be taking it up with the Minister" reply, and a promise of a report on the outcome.

Meantime, I've heard from so many other people that the insulation has really made a great difference and they're very happy with it, that I'm considering having it done after all.:rolleyes:
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Did you ever get a follow up in this Pink Batt ripoff, Julia.

It seems to have been lost in the mists of time.

gg
 
Garpal Gumnut said:
Did you ever get a follow up in this Pink Batt ripoff, Julia.

It seems to have been lost in the mists of time.

gg
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I'm struggling to remember now, gg. I'm pretty sure I received acknowledgement, thanks, and an assurance it would be pursued.

I succumbed to having the dreaded batts installed and have to say they have been most effective. House is definitely warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
 
Julia said:
I'm struggling to remember now, gg. I'm pretty sure I received acknowledgement, thanks, and an assurance it would be pursued.

I succumbed to having the dreaded batts installed and have to say they have been most effective. House is definitely warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
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No doubt your electricity consumption is down also. I make this observation not in the context of political point scoring but merely as being something we have noticed as well.

Dismissed at the time as a waste of money, the objectives from memory were to stimulate the economy (?) and contribute to the reduction of Australia's carbon footprint. The stimulus to the economy was over-shadowed by tragic events related to abuses of the roll out and ripoffs. There is always an element of the community that will see an opportunity to make a quick and often unscrupulous profit. Additionaly, imo, it was to narrow an area of the economy to have a significant impact on the overall economy to provide any real stimulus.

But the reduction to the carbon footprint has worked (setting aside for now the carbon tax arguments). A further observation, which I suspect is related to the pink bat roll out, is that the sell-off of power plants by state governments has not been the income stream the infrastructure buyers had expected. The buyers of the infrastructure now want to increase electricity prices based on their claimed need to replace power poles, lines etc and crank up production of more electricity to deal with peak demands. Only problem is, peak demands have fallen and are continuing to fall. The basis for the power companies to increase prices is being challenged, much to their chagrin.
 
nulla nulla said:
No doubt your electricity consumption is down also. I make this observation not in the context of political point scoring but merely as being something we have noticed as well.
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No. It's about the same. I use very little electricity inside the house which is designed well for admitting sun in winter and shade in summer. Most of it goes in running and heating the pool.
 
Julia said:
No. It's about the same. I use very little electricity inside the house which is designed well for admitting sun in winter and shade in summer. Most of it goes in running and heating the pool.
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Cheers :) Pink bats won't work over the pool, they get too soggy.
 
nulla nulla said:
Cheers :) Pink bats won't work over the pool, they get too soggy.
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Actually, that does raise the question of whether a substance like the batts could be placed inside the waterproof pool blanket? Probably would be awkward to handle, but would almost certainly be more effective in trapping heat than the usual quite thin pool blanket.
 
Julia said:
Actually, that does raise the question of whether a substance like the batts could be placed inside the waterproof pool blanket? Probably would be awkward to handle, but would almost certainly be more effective in trapping heat than the usual quite thin pool blanket.
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Something in black would trap heat but wouldn't trapped heat generate algae?
 
having helped my dad install roof insulation in 100+ houses in my early uni years I was happy that the insulation I received was a good 4 inches thick. it was also not "dusty" like some of the product we had been forced to install.

The guy did a good job and I actually got him and his dad to do a few other jobs around the house as they were reasonably priced for quality work.

the insulation certainly stops the extremes of heat / cold, but does mean the upstairs rooms stay hotter in summer, and can take longer to warm up in winter.

Am thinking I need to get something to bring the air from outside into the rooms. wouldn't take much to adjust the temperature if i could do that.

Probably hasn't reduced summer electricity consumption so much, but during winter I've seen a big drop - have two Thai guys renting rooms and I joke that they think winter is anything below 28 degrees :D
 
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