Module 7 · Proportionate Remediation
7.5 Interventions People Can Actually Run
8 min read
Module 6 treated ventilation as a design question within a retrofit. As a remediation it meets something different: an actual household with an actual income, a heating pattern they can afford, and a tolerance for noise and controls. A specification that ignores all of that is technically correct and will be switched off within a month — and the report that produced it will be cited as evidence that ventilation does not work.
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson you will be able to:
- Assess whether an intervention will be operated as specified.
- Specify heating and ventilation remediation that survives contact with the household.
- Address affordability without either ignoring it or condescending.
- Distinguish advice to the occupant from advice to the duty-holder.
Key terms
- Operational reality
- Whether the specified measure will actually run as intended, given cost, noise, controls and the occupant's circumstances.
- Fuel poverty
- Where the cost of adequate warmth is beyond a household's means. A direct moisture risk factor, because unheated surfaces are cold surfaces.
- Set-point and pattern
- The temperature maintained and when. Intermittent heating produces cold surfaces between periods, and surface temperature is what governs mould.
- Duty-holder advice
- Recommendations directed at the party who controls the building, as distinct from advice to an occupant about how to live.
Read the rest of Proportionate Remediation
Module 1 is open to everyone. The remaining six modules — building science, each damp mechanism in depth, meters and thermal imaging, the full inspection method, and report writing — are free too. We just ask for an email so you can pick up where you left off, and so we can send your certificate when you finish.