It’s important that we work with government to ensure the highest quality of insulation of Solid Wall Insulation for grant funded work. One of the tools for achieving this has been PAS2030 and PAS 2035. Although quality must not be compromised the standards brought into ensure this quality must be practical and achievable without increasing the cost to a point where it is not feasible to carry out the work. There has been a concern that some of the guidance in PAS2030 (2019) was impractical or result in costs that would have severely impacted on the take up of solid wall insulation in ECO4. SWIGA has been working hard in partnership with the NIA and INCA to ensure that the PAS 2030 guidelines are workable without compromising on quality and the performance of the systems being applied.

We have received confirmation from BEIS that it is not a necessity to go below ground with the insulation to comply with PAS. We have been working on this for several months in cooperation with the NIA. Case studies were also provided by some of our members. Critically, during the process we liaised with all stake holders including Trustmark  to ensure that the changes did not compromise compliance and technical monitoring.

We are also currently working on a set of more robust verge trim proposal which has been accepted conditional to some testing over the winter period , which is being commissioned.
 
SWIGA has also gained agreement that the weathering guide (see link below) could be updated without waiting for the next version of the PAS to avoid lengthy delays.
 
The final sticking point was to amend the element of PAS 2030 2019 that negates the use of non-plastic or metal trims.
The line within the PAS has now been amended but points to a YET TO BE AMENDED ‘Weathering and Thermal Bridge Guide’. Trials are currently underway by industry on more robust solutions and once these have been completed and the evidence of their use viewed as satisfactory, the details will be added to the Weathering and Thermal bridge guide to be used by industry. Until these trials have been completed and details added, verge trims of any kind remain banned for use in funded schemes
 
It is believed that these revisions will save the industry over £350m without impacting on performance. Money that can be spent on additional solid wall insulation measures.