Spray foam insulation was sold to a lot of UK homeowners as a straightforward efficiency upgrade. Many of those homeowners have since found that it creates problems the sales visit never mentioned, particularly when they come to remortgage or sell.
This page sets out what the actual problems are, why lenders react to it the way they do, and what you can do if the product was sold to you on the strength of claims that turned out not to hold up.
The short version
Spray foam itself is not banned and is not automatically a defect. The difficulty is that when it is applied to the underside of a roof, it can prevent the roof space from ventilating and it can make the timbers impossible to inspect. Those two things together are why a surveyor may be unwilling to sign it off and why a lender may decline.
That is a property and lending problem before it is anything else. It does not depend on the foam being faulty.
Why lenders and surveyors object
The roof cannot be inspected
A surveyor’s job includes checking the condition of roof timbers. Where foam has been sprayed directly onto the underside of the roof covering and between the rafters, the timbers are hidden. A surveyor who cannot see them will often say so in the report rather than assume they are sound.
Once that appears in a survey, the lender is making a decision without knowing the condition of the roof structure.
Ventilation
Traditional pitched roofs rely on air moving through the loft space to carry moisture away. Closed cell foam applied to the underside of the covering can stop that airflow. Where moisture then has nowhere to go, it can sit against timber.
Whether this causes damage depends heavily on how the property was built, how the foam was applied, and whether the existing ventilation was properly assessed first. It is not inevitable. It is also not rare.
Removing it is not simple
Because the foam bonds to the surfaces it is sprayed onto, taking it off again is labour intensive and can damage what is underneath. Homeowners are often quoted a substantial sum, and that quote arrives at exactly the moment a sale or remortgage is already under way.
Is spray foam insulation safe?
In the sense people usually mean, the material is not a health hazard once cured. The concerns that come up in practice are structural and financial rather than toxic: trapped moisture, timber condition, inspection access, and the effect on the property’s value and saleability.
The honest answer is that it depends on the type of foam, where it was applied, and whether the roof was suitable for it in the first place. Open cell and closed cell behave differently. A ventilated cold roof and a warm roof are different situations. A blanket yes or no is not available, which is precisely why a specific assessment of your own roof matters more than a general opinion.
Can I sell my house with spray foam insulation?
You can sell it. The practical issue is the pool of buyers.
A cash buyer is unaffected. A buyer who needs a mortgage depends on their lender’s view, and lenders vary. Some will lend with a satisfactory report from a suitably qualified inspector confirming the installation and the condition of the timbers. Some decline regardless. Some want it removed and the roof reinstated first.
In practice this often shows up as a sale that proceeds normally until the survey, and then stalls.
Can I get a mortgage with spray foam insulation?
Sometimes, and it turns on documentation. What tends to help:
- The original installation paperwork, including the product used and the warranty.
- Evidence of what survey or assessment was done before installation, particularly on ventilation.
- An independent inspection report on the current condition of the roof and timbers.
Where none of that exists, which is common when the sale was made door to door or over the phone, the lender is being asked to accept an unknown. That is usually where the difficulty starts.
What was said at the point of sale
This is the part that turns a property problem into something you may be able to do something about. Homeowners frequently tell us that at the point of sale they were told some combination of the following:
- That the installation was covered by a publicly funded scheme or grant, when it was not, or not in the way described.
- That it would not affect the ability to sell or remortgage.
- That the roof had been surveyed and was suitable, when no meaningful survey took place.
- That the product carried a long warranty, which then turns out to be with a company that no longer trades.
- That savings would be of a particular size, with figures that were never going to be achieved.
Where finance was arranged at the same appointment, that is a separate matter again, and worth noting alongside.
What you can do
Start with the paperwork before anything else:
- Find the original contract, the quote, and anything handed over on the day.
- Check who actually did the work and whether that company still trades. Installations are often sold by one company and carried out by another.
- Locate the warranty and find out whether it is with the installer, a manufacturer, or an insurance backed warranty provider.
- Note how the sale happened: in your home, over the phone, at an event, or through a cold approach.
- Get an independent view of the roof from a suitably qualified inspector, which is what a lender is likely to ask for anyway.
With that in hand, the question becomes who is responsible for the position you are in and what you are asking them to do about it.
How Equisure Direct can help
We prepare correspondence. That means reading the paperwork, setting out what was said at the point of sale against what has actually happened, and drafting the letters for you to send in your own name to the installer, the scheme, or the finance provider.
To be clear about what we do not do: we do not remove spray foam, we do not survey roofs, and we do not arrange the work. We deal with the paperwork and the correspondence side of it.
You are free to write these letters yourself at no cost. Where people tend to want help is when the installer has stopped responding, when the company that sold it no longer exists, or when a sale is already under way and the correspondence needs to be right first time.
Equisure Direct is a letter writing and document administration service. We are not a law firm, we are not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and we do not provide legal advice. We cannot say what the outcome of any complaint will be. This page is general information, not advice about your own property.
What to have ready
- The original agreement and any finance paperwork signed at the same time.
- The name of the company that sold it and the company that installed it.
- The warranty document, if you have one.
- Any survey or report, before or after installation.
- A note of what you were told about grants, savings, or selling the property.
Related services
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