PCA Spray Foam Removal Standard: What the New Framework Means for Your Roof

On 27 August 2026 the Property Care Association announced a new membership category for spray foam removal contractors, the first attempt by a recognised UK trade body to set competency requirements, independent auditing and compliance monitoring for the firms that take the foam out. Remove Spray Foam was one of a small number of contractors invited to sit down with the PCA and help shape it, and we expect to be among the first removers in the sector to hold PCA approval when the scheme goes live before the end of September.

For the estimated 250,000 UK households with spray foam in the roof, this is the most significant change to the removal market since the mortgage problems first surfaced. Until now, anyone with a van and a scraper has been able to call themselves a specialist, and plenty have.

What the PCA has announced

The PCA is the trade body for damp, timber, waterproofing and related property care work. It already runs the Spray Foam Assessor Register for surveyors and, in late 2022, led the cross-industry group that produced the inspection protocol most valuers now use when they find foam in a loft. What it has never had, until now, is a category for the contractors doing the removal.

As reported by Mortgage Solutions, the new membership will bring defined competency requirements, independent auditing, compliance monitoring, technical guidance and training to a sector the PCA itself describes as unregulated. James Berry, the association's deputy chief executive, was careful about the language: the aim is not to regulate the market by law but to create an independently recognised benchmark that lets homeowners, surveyors and lenders tell a competent contractor from an opportunist. Roofing Today reported that a stakeholder meeting in September opens the consultation on the final framework.

Nobody is going to be prosecuted for removing foam without a PCA badge, so it is worth being clear about what the membership will and will not do, but it may stop consumers being misguided. PCA contractor members are automatically listed under the government-endorsed TrustMark scheme, and lenders and valuers have spent three years asking for a recognisable standard they can point to when a removal certificate lands on their desk. Once one exists, we would expect surveyors to start asking whether the contractor was PCA approved, in the same way they already ask whether a damp proofing firm was.

Why the removal sector needed it

The PCA's own announcement lays out the problem bluntly. Berry said the association has had reports of homeowners being told they are on a "national database" of properties set to lose value unless the foam comes out. In some cases, he said, pensioners have been shown fake ID carrying the PCA logo by people calling themselves surveyors, even though PCA members do not currently offer removal at all.

We have written before about unofficial "standards" and certificates that carry no weight with any lender, and about the trading standards warnings that followed cold-calling removal firms across Devon, Somerset, Scotland and Essex. The HomeOwners Alliance has been calling for government action on precisely this point, noting that many of the affected households are elderly and are being targeted by firms who exploit the mortgage fear.

The underlying problem has not eased either. A joint PCA and HomeOwners Alliance inspection of more than 500 homes found around 35% had at least one defect caused by the installation, and the House of Commons Library briefing, updated in July, still records that a quarter of the largest mortgage providers and every equity release lender surveyed will not lend where retrofitted foam is present. So there is no shortage of homeowners who need the foam out; what has been missing is any reliable way of telling which firms can be trusted to do it.

Two years of trading as the entry bar

Based on the discussions we took part in, one of the conditions expected in the final framework is a minimum of two years of active trading before a contractor can be considered for approval. The exact wording will be settled through the PCA's consultation, but the intent is clear.

Spray foam removal has attracted a wave of new entrants since 2024, a good number of them companies that were installing foam eighteen months ago and have swapped the gun for a scraper because that is where the money went. A two-year threshold will not guarantee quality by itself, but it does mean a firm has a track record the PCA can audit, a body of completed jobs a surveyor can ask about, and enough time in business for any complaints to have worked their way through to Trustpilot or trading standards. It should also shut out the phoenix operators who close one company and reopen under a fresh name when the reviews turn sour, which has been a recurring pattern in this sector.

Roofing felt: no more patching over a failing membrane

The second expected requirement is the one homeowners should pay closest attention to, because it changes what a removal quote has to include. Contractors will be expected to be fully transparent about the condition of the felt or breathable membrane beneath the tiles once the foam is off.

Anyone who has spent time in these lofts will know why this needed writing down. Foam sprayed directly onto bitumen felt bonds to it, and when the foam comes away the felt very often comes with it, or is left torn, brittle and perished where it has been sitting against a vapour barrier for years. A cheap removal job patches the worst of it with tape or offcuts, signs the paperwork and leaves, and six months later the homeowner is looking at water tracking down the rafters while a surveyor asks who signed the roof off.

Under the framework as we understand it, poor felt should not be repatched and presented as sound. Where the membrane has failed, the contractor will be expected to say so in writing, and in a proportion of cases the honest recommendation will be a full re-roof rather than a cosmetic repair. Nobody enjoys delivering that news, and it is a considerably bigger bill, but a lender's surveyor will lift the loft hatch regardless of what the removal certificate says, so a homeowner is better served hearing it from the contractor than from a valuer two years later.

The PCA's existing homeowner guidance already makes the same point from the other direction: if a roof is near the end of its life, foam should never have gone on it in the first place. The new membership carries that logic through to the removal.

What this means if you are getting quotes now

If you are speaking to removal firms this month, ask each one directly whether they are applying for PCA membership and where they are in the process. Given the coverage the announcement has had in the trade press, a specialist who has not heard of it either is not paying attention or does not intend to apply, and neither is reassuring. Ask how long the company has traded under its current name and check that against Companies House. Ask what happens if the felt is found to be perished, and whether the quote covers a written condition report on the membrane and timbers, not just the foam.

Be wary of anyone who mentions a national database, produces ID you cannot verify, or wants a deposit before a site survey. The PCA has said its members do not currently offer removal, so a PCA logo on a removal firm's paperwork today is worth checking against the association's own member directory before you rely on it. Once the new category is live, that directory will be the place to look. Our 2026 removal guide covers the rest of what a proper job should involve.

Where Remove Spray Foam stands

We were invited to those PCA sessions because of the volume of work behind us, Remove Spray Foam has completed over 3000 removals across the UK. Much of what the framework is expected to formalise is how we have worked since the start.

We expect to be one of the first removers in the sector to be PCA approved when the scheme launches, before the end of September. We will update this article and our mortgage guidance once the final requirements are published and our membership is confirmed.

In the meantime nothing about how we work is changing. We do not cold-call or take payment up front, every job starts with a free, no-obligation site survey and a clear written quote, and if the felt beneath your foam is in trouble we will tell you before we start rather than after we have gone. Get in touch with Remove Spray Foam to book a survey.

Concerned about spray foam in your roof, or unsure whether a removal firm is who they say they are? Contact Remove Spray Foam for straight answers and a free site visit.