Vacuum insulation panels (VIP) are considered as high-performance thermal insulation products in the building industry where their spread has continuously increased a decade since. The authors believe that this trend will continue and even strengthen in future. Subsequently, they are willing to emphasize that addressing quality issues from production to installation is essential in avoiding costly pitfalls. The present study analyses the reasons for the deterioration of some specific VIP panels encapsulated in expanded polystyrene and applied to a facade in an urban area. The reason for failure in this case can be attributed to a systematic failure in the metallization process i.e. to a failure in quality assurance and not as assumed in most cases to the vulnerability of the VIP envelope. The shortcomings of the investigated facade are discussed based on both on-site and laboratory investigations to avoid similar quality flaw in VIP containing constructions. The aim is to prevent unfavorable publicity for this high-tech product with a promising applicability in retrofitting the considerable number of existing old buildings worldwide. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.