February 28 2017 nelson weekly 28pgs web

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Nelson Weekly Locally Owned and Operated

tuesday 28 February 2017

ready to laugh

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Celebrating 5 years in the region! PAGE 13-15

Giant help for basketball team

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A home warming warning Nelson man Ross Wylie outside his Mount St home for which he says Comfortmaster told him they could insulate and give him a government subsidy. A subsidy which they are not allowed to offer. Photo: Andrew Board.

Andrew Board Editor

andrew@nelsonweekly.co.nz

A company alledgedly offering government or council subsidies on hugely inflated quotes to insulate homes in Nelson is attracting a growing number of complaints and is “likely” to be breaching the Fair Trading Act. Comfortmaster is a North Island-

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based business, which according to its advertising flyers, does home heating, insulation, LED lighting, ventilation, cooling and water filtration. It has been cold-calling Nelsonians in the evening, asking if they’d like a free quote to insulate their home. Nelson Weekly has spoken with four people who invited representatives of the company into

their home to quote. For each of them the initial quote was around $6500 to $7000, which works out to be around $57 per square metre. The industry standard is about $17 per square metre. The home owners were then told they were eligible for a government or council subsidy which would bring the initial quote down to around $4000, still about $30 per square metre.

Nelson City Council told the Weekly that it does not have any such subsidy or grant. EECA, the government agency which offers the subsidies for home insulation, says Comfortmaster is not one of its contracted service providers and urged people not to fall for their “bullying tactics”. But Comfortmaster says all of the residents have misunderstood the

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offer. It was, in fact, a discount offered by Comfortmaster because of their “superior buying power” and the over-inflated quotes were a mistake by staff. Ross Wylie, who lives on Mount St in Nelson, says he was first contacted by Comfortmaster late last year. This month he agreed to a free quote.

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