Home Insulation Test Results

One in four homes inspected after the Federal Government's botched home insulation scheme had varying levels of safety risk and did not meet national building safety standards.
To quote Alison Rehn of the Daily Telegraph, "the disastrous $2.45 billion pink batts program" was axed 12 months ago following the deaths of four installers, many reported injuries, 205 house fires, and scores of complaints about shonky installations and dodgy operators.
Some 58,000 houses had foil insulation fitted. Because of the higher perceived hazard risk with this material, the Government committed to inspect every foil-fitted house, and of the 44,000 inspected so far nearly a third have had the insulation removed, and half of the rest needed safety switches installed.
About 1,100,000 homes had non-foil products installed, perceived to be less of a hazard. However of the 141,000 homes fitted with non-foil insulation products that were targeted for safety inspections, 34,000 (24%) did not comply with standards. The paper doesn't explain why the Government proposed only to inspect little more than ten percent of the houses with non-foil insulation. Perhaps now that the results are in, showing that 24% of those inspected are defective, they will reconsider, and should consider testing all the remaining 83,000 homes!
A number of legal claims are in the offing. One also wonders if anything is being done to compensate the poor honest businesses who stocked up on insulation material only to have the demand slashed by the cancellation of the program.
Alison's word, "disastrous", is certainly appropriate.