Urgent: Health and Safety Peril at Home Due to Weatherization Program Errors
Michelle8517
| Posted in GBA Pro Help on
I am writing to you today in desperation, pleading for your assistance with a dire situation that has endangered my family’s health and home for the past three years. In late 2020, my residence participated in the Home Energy Plus Furnace Program in my state. Unfortunately, their work and weatherization work resulted in critical, unaddressed errors that have caused major indoor air quality problems, creating a toxic environment for my family and myself.
Extensive Damage from Weatherization Program:
• Moisture intrusion and particulate contamination: Improper attic insulation installed led to widespread moisture build-up and trapped cellulose particles, contaminating carpets, furniture, bedding, and the entire air we breathe. I often compare vacuming to be much like vacuming a beach in every single room of my home. Forced to purchase a high end model in order to limit my asthmatic daughter’s condition, this still doesn’t remove the extreme amount of sediment embedded in all things fabric within our home and every crack and crevice. This is due to the extreme amount of vapor matter lingering in my home’s air that I have been documenting for nearly three years now. Attached documentation below of this actually occurring.
• Backdrafting and CO2 hazards: Faulty installation of the furnace, water heater, and dryer vents caused severe backdrafting, leading to high CO2 levels, sulfur, formaldehyde, and VOCs within the home.
• Mold growth and respiratory issues: The moisture issues resulted in significant mold growth, further exacerbating health risks and leading to my children’s ongoing respiratory problems, with one child developing asthma.
Exhausting Efforts for Resolution:
Despite repeated attempts to seek remediation and hold those responsible accountable, I have encountered a wall of silence and denial. My numerous complaints to the DNR, HUD, Disability Rights, the Secretary of State, and even the Governor’s Office have all fallen on deaf ears. Even a Community Development Block Grant, initially promising relief, was denied due to unsubstantiated accusations of “abuse” after I sought assistance from HUD regarding the problematic attic work. This denial was based upon “duplicate funding” due to what I’ve been told is the same CDBG funding used for both programs. However, since I was planning to utilize these block grant funds to fix the issues left by the weatherization program, duplicate funding is not a factor. Nonetheless, I have no authority of such a situation and am just a simple homeowner and mother of two, up against state employees who hold much more power myself. Legal or not, this is just one of many of these programs that are both administered and overseen by The Department of Administration’s Division of Energy and Community Resources. All complaints I have submitted to many agencies throughout the state and beyond have nearly all been directed straight back to The DOA where it all has begun. After thar occurs, I receive zero responses and nothing but silence as they continue to ignore my pleas for help. I imagine laughter as well as they keep receiving these complaints that they decide to do nothing with but toss away as if it never even happened. Absolutely no one in this state should be going through such a situation, yet here I am, still begging for help that never does come.
Thank you,
Michelle
608-462-3527
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Replies
Michele, GBA and the internet can't help you. You need a local attorney and, unfortunately, enough money to establish a coherent argument. If in fact there was mold growth, that is one avenue to explore with your homeowner's insurance company.
Michelle,
The trouble with existing housing stock is its reliance on adequate air infiltration to feed hungry combustion appliances, occupant metabolism, and dilute accumulated indoor air pollutants released by furnishings, cooking and science experiments.
The weatherization Program probably incorporated air sealing, and they may have done a fantastic job of it.
Negative indoor pressure will encourage infiltration (which might now carry with it the finer looser fraction of new insulation material) and cause sub-optimal combustion performance.
Your story seems to point towards:
Inadequate make air (open a door and let them in),
Inadequate house ventilation (Time for an ERV)
To confirm this possibility, see if the program will do a Blower Door Test.
And in your copious spare time you can learn Building Science and Mold Growth Potential; Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERVs) and Indoor Air Quality. There's a lot of material on GBA and the World Wide Web.
It'll be overwhelming.
We solved the combustion air hunger problem by eliminating combustion. I suppose we could solve the CO2 accumulation issue by eliminating metabolizing beings, but we cant figure out who goes.
Let’s start with the back drafting claim. If true the home will have measurable carbon monoxide and would require the building to be evacuated immediately before someone dies. Most locations require by law a carbon monoxide detector in each unit, is one installed in your unit? Has the CO alarm sounded? If the CO alarm is sounding leave the building and call the fire department!
I saw the photo of the CO2 level that is a very different gas and mostly the byproduct of human respiration. The number shown is far from ideal it is also far from lethal. At that level I imagine the room feels stuffy and you could crack open a window.
Cellulose is pretty benign stuff and it is hard to imagine that is actually continuously falling down on you after 3 years.
Do you have photos of actively growing mold?
One photo shows the control display for a blower door with it running I assume. Did the person running the blower door calculate the ACH50 number for your unit? Will you please post the blower door test report?
I apologize if I sound skeptical but you are making big claims and showing scant evidence to support them.
Walta
What an odd post. Is this copy and paste from a Facebook scam or something?
Agreed, that’s what it seems like no?