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.
You are not alone! I’ve been experiencing very similar issues and have been bullied and tossed around because of the same situation. Reach out to me…maybe we can work together. [email protected]
Katherine
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?
Not at all. This is a real story and one I am still fighting. The cellulose insulation has been carried by a vapor matter within my home. Which results in all carpeting, bedding, furniture, etc to be filled with these particulates mixed with fiberglass as the cellulose was blown in over the top of fiberglass batts already in place. There are dark lines along all edges of carpeting, much like soil filtration lines. However, these are not from sooting but instead due to the abundance of VOCS within the air as they hit the walls and accumulate along the edges. Baseboards are moisture ridden along with everything else in my home, floors are also beginning to feel unstable as well.
An ERV was gifted, only to become a rather disappointment due to this expensive machine not doing anything to stop this. Among the backdrafting furnace and water heater, it appears as the septic/plumbing vent stack is also backdrafting. Air tests revealed high levels if sulfur, arsenic, lead, and others. Please be sure to see the attached video. Yes this is really happening.
I am still fighting for my home and family every single day. Welcome to my nightmare.
Michelle,
You wrote, "The cellulose insulation has been carried by a vapor matter within my home." What are you trying to say? Cellulose particles are big, while water vapor is invisible, composed of evaporated water (that is, extraordinarily small water molecules suspended in air).
The phrase "water vapor matter" is meaningless.
Your video is very poor resolution and we can’t really see anything useful.
With that being said. I think video is the way to go if you want help from an Internet forum. You just need to learn how to record quality video and then upload it in a way where most if not all of the quality is retained.
I’m guessing this forum has restrictions on file size so uploading directly to the forum is likely not the best. It would likely be better to create a YouTube account (if you don’t already have one) and upload your video to YouTube. Then share a link to the YouTube video in your comments on this forum.
I second the YouTube link suggestion. This site does severely limit file sizes.
Hello,
That video may seem blurry, but I assure you it is not. That is due to the amount of moisture in the air. Please pay attention to the baseboards and flooring area closely.
We can't make out the louvres in the grille or the grain in the wood floor. It's a blurry video.
Agree. Wonder if OP has actually clicked on her video from within the forum or if she’s looking at the original when she says it’s not blurry.
Regardless, even if by some crazy chance it isn’t blurry, OP should practice giving the viewe of her videos perspective of what she is observing while recording.
Many people take a video up close to something they find interesting without backing up or zooming out to show the context of the environment. This leaves the viewer lost as to what they are actually looking at.