One in Four Homeowners Report Home Repair Problems – What Should You Check Before Choosing an Installer?
In The Press
In Brief
Citizens Advice research published in July 2026 found that one in four homeowners had a problem with the trader carrying out their most recent home repair, equivalent to an estimated 4.8 million homeowners over 18 months. Problems ranged from poor-quality work and delays to unexpected costs and difficulty getting issues resolved.
For anyone choosing a window, door or home improvement company, the research is a useful reminder to look beyond the initial price. Check the company’s history, independently verify its accreditations, understand the guarantee, make sure the specification is clear and find out who deals with problems after installation.
SEH BAC has been improving homes since 1966, with independent industry accreditations, a dedicated Customer Care team and more than 2,400 customer reviews on Trustpilot.
New research from Citizens Advice should give anyone planning work on their home something to think about.
Published in July 2026, the research found that one in four homeowners experienced a problem with the trader carrying out their most recent home repair. Citizens Advice estimates that equates to around 4.8 million homeowners in just 18 months.
For most people, replacing windows, buying a new front door or investing in a larger home improvement isn’t something they do very often. It can also involve a substantial amount of money.
So how do you know who to use?
Price matters, of course. But so does what happens after you have paid your deposit, who is responsible if there is a problem, whether the company will still be there to honour its guarantee, and how straightforward it is to get someone to deal with an issue.
What did Citizens Advice find?
Citizens Advice commissioned Opinium to survey 5,000 UK adults responsible for arranging or paying for repairs and improvements to their homes. The research was carried out between 13 February and 4 March 2026.
A quarter of homeowners reported an issue with the trader on their most recent repair.
Some of the financial consequences were significant. Citizens Advice estimates that around 1.7 million homeowners had to spend more money correcting earlier work or were overcharged, with the average additional loss put at £750. For one in ten of those affected, the additional cost exceeded £5,000.
Getting the original problem sorted wasn’t necessarily easy either.
Of the people who took action after experiencing an issue, 82% said they faced some form of barrier while trying to resolve it. One in five said the process took a long time, while 16% said the trader ignored them.
Citizens Advice recorded almost 37,000 complaints about home maintenance and improvements during 2025.
That lack of confidence is starting to change people’s behaviour.
Some 28% of those arranging home repairs said they had carried out work themselves because they didn’t think they could find a trader they could trust. Another 26% had delayed or avoided repairs for the same reason.
That’s not particularly good news for homeowners or for reputable businesses working in the sector.
What does this mean if you’re buying windows or doors?
There is a temptation with any large home improvement to concentrate on the product.
Which window? Which colour? Double or triple glazing? What style of front door? What’s the U-value? How much will it cost?
Those questions matter, but they aren’t the whole purchase.
A window can have an excellent specification on paper and still disappoint if it has been measured incorrectly or badly fitted. Equally, even a well-run installation company can occasionally have a product fault or something that needs adjusting afterwards.
That’s where the company behind the product matters.
How long has it been trading? Who carries out the survey? Who installs the product? What guarantee is provided? If you telephone six months later because a door needs adjusting, is there actually a service department to call?
Citizens Advice found that around one in five people who had used an approved or accredited trader found it difficult to verify their credentials.
So don’t just accept a logo on a website. Check what the accreditation is and, where possible, verify it independently.
What should you check before choosing a window or home improvement company?
We’d suggest doing a little more than comparing three prices.
- Check how long the business has been established. Longevity isn’t a guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong, but it matters when someone is promising to support a product for years after installation.
- Read the guarantee before buying. Find out how long it lasts, what it covers and whether any parts of the installation are excluded.
- Find out who deals with problems afterwards. There is a big difference between a company having a telephone number and having an established aftercare process with people responsible for handling service issues.
- Check its accreditations yourself. For replacement windows and doors, schemes such as FENSA give homeowners an independent point of reference. Don’t be afraid to look companies up rather than relying on the badge printed in their brochure.
- Look properly at the reviews. The overall score is useful, but read recent reviews too. Read some of the lower-rated ones. See what went wrong and, importantly, see how the company responded.
- Make sure the specification is clear. You should know what is being supplied, what is included in the price and what work the installer is responsible for before work starts.
None of these checks is particularly difficult. Together they give you a much better picture than price alone.
How does SEH BAC approach this?
SEH BAC has been improving homes across the South East and East of England for more than 60 years.
We are currently accredited by organisations and schemes including FENSA, the Glass and Glazing Federation, TrustMark and QA National Warranties. These can be independently checked rather than simply taken on our word.
We also have a dedicated Customer Care function.
That distinction matters. We install thousands of individual products and components into people’s homes. We’d like every installation to go perfectly and remain problem-free for its entire life, but pretending that a service department will never be needed isn’t realistic.
If something does need attention, there needs to be a route for dealing with it.
Our Customer Care process includes a formal complaints procedure and a team customers can contact about product queries and repairs. Our own published policy makes clear that when we haven’t got something right, we want customers to tell us so that we can deal with it.
There’s external evidence for customers to consider too.
At the time of publication, SEH BAC is rated 4.7 out of 5 on Trustpilot from more than 2,400 reviews.
We think the number of reviews is as useful as the headline rating. It gives prospective customers a substantial body of feedback to read through rather than a handful of selected testimonials.
And we’d encourage people to read the poor reviews as well as the good ones. No company serving thousands of customers is going to please every person every time. How a business responds when somebody isn’t happy tells you quite a lot about it.
Before you sign on the dotted line
The Citizens Advice research isn’t an argument against improving your home. Millions of home improvements are completed successfully every year.
It is an argument for doing your homework before choosing who carries them out.
For windows, doors and other major improvements, look beyond the initial quotation. Check the company, check the accreditations, understand the guarantee and find out who you will be dealing with if you need help later.
If you’re considering new windows, a front door, patio or bifold doors, a conservatory, replacement conservatory roof or a home extension, you can speak to SEH BAC, visit one of our showrooms or arrange a free, no-obligation quotation.
After all, choosing the product is only part of the job. You also need to choose who you’re trusting to put it into your home.
Research source: Citizens Advice, “Built to fail: How the home repairs market is failing consumers”, published 7 July 2026. The research was commissioned from Opinium and conducted during February and March 2026.
